Kathy Joy La Plante Writing what others won’t say out loud

This is a great yarn that will whisk you up and carry you from sedate Seven Sisters college life to wartime London to the lush countryside of France, as you lose yourself in two parallel stories of anti-queer witch hunts in the military, one in World War II, and one in all-too-recent US history.

 Present-day: meet Noel "El" De la Mare, disgraced daughter of a once-proud military family -- ousted as queer, marooned in her homophobic hometown, drinking her way to oblivion -- until she receives a first-class ticket to France from a relative she's never met.

 El has been summoned by her elderly -- but never old! -- great-aunt, Catherine De la Mare, and Catherine's French wife, Colette. These two heroic women fought for their own freedom to love, serving as spies during the war -- Catherine with the British Army, and Colette with the French Resistance.

 As El hears Catherine and Colette's hair-raising accounts of their commando training and their underground work in France, she sees that for the first time in her life, she is not alone. Her aunts are ready to do battle again, this time to contest the dishonorable discharge of their young queer niece. They are fiercely determined to rekindle in her the fighting spirit of the De la Mares.

 Based on true stories of the heroic secret agents who helped to defeat the Nazis -- and on the real experiences of servicemembers traumatized by homophobic persecution in today's military -- The Summons is a love song, a battle cry, and an adventure story you won't forget.