Chicagoland Author Releases Rare WWII Letters Between Two Teens in Love in New Book

CHICAGO - Nov. 9, 2014 - PRLog -- CHICAGO, Nov. 10, 2014 -- While helping an elderly family member with veterans administration paperwork, Laura Lynn Ashworth, a metro Chicago resident, came across 170 letters exchanged between two teenagers in love during the final  terrifying years of World War II, 1943-1945.

Sal, age 19 and nicknamed Slabby for his movie star good looks deciphers code out of the Navy’s radio shack on a minesweeper in the Pacific.  Loretta, age 15, monikered Duchess for her aloofness lives with aunts and her widowed father, while holding day jobs and enjoying an active social life with friends.  Both from the Douglas Park neighborhood in Chicago, the two adolescents discuss with humor and candor the war, politics, their families, friends, life back home and their relationship along with detailed recantations of the most popular music of the time.

Letters to Loretta from the Radio Shack lets the reader experience World War II, both in battle and on the home front, through the eyes of adolescents in a way that Hollywood movies have never portrayed.  The end of the book takes a turn that readers will not expect.

“When I ran across these letters, I knew I had to share them with the public for their historical significance alone, but I was also taken aback about how frankly and comically these two teens discussed such serious issues of the time and what tremendous responsibilities that had to home and country at such a young age.  Their uncanny social insights, romantic love and humor in the most dire of times was not what I expected.”

“Letter to Loretta from the Radio Shack,” will be available in paperback at Amazon.com and can be found in the most popular eReader stores including Amazon Kindle, iBooks, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo and many others.  Early signed copies of the book can be ordered directly from the author for $14.95 plus shipping by emailing LauraLynnAshworth@gmail.com.

Ten percent of the author’s proceeds will be donated to the Veteran of Foreign Wars (VFW) and United Service Organizations (USO) in recognition of the important roles they played in supporting those who so selflessly gave their lives during World War II.

Laura Lynn Ashworth is an award-winning writer and political cartoonist.    She currently lives and works in a northwest suburb of Chicago.