Excerpt from The War Librarian by Addison Armstrong, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But now, only three more months. Three more months until we charged through the Naval Academy doors with the men. Just three more months of skirts and coifs, of cleaning up my boss's messes and staring endlessly at the swinging door of his office.

Nana was smiling softly up at me. "I take it they accepted you?"

"Yes!" I thrust the letter into her hands, and she squinted down at it. When she looked up, her smile was even wider. But her eyes were hooded and dark.

I fidgeted on my feet, waiting for Nana's congratulations. She was always my most vocal supporter. I held myself to high standards; when I accomplished a goal, I simply viewed it as having met an expectation. But Nana always made me celebrate. She took me out for ice cream when I was elected fifth-grade class president, bought a display case for my track trophy in ninth grade despite the expense, and wrote in all her Christmas cards that I'd graduated from high school summa cum laude. For this goal, which had been my dream forever, I expected her to outdo herself.

But instead, hooded eyes. Hooded eyes and silence.

I took back the letter and looked at it again. I am pleased to offer you...

The tightness that Nana's expression pulled in my chest couldn't stop me from smiling at those words. I'd done so much to get into the academy. I'd written Congressman Walter Fauntroy and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller for a nomination, both of them limited to ten nominations per vacancy and five attending nominees. I'd taken the SAT, two years after my wealthier classmates—though several of the poorer ones had never taken it at all. Then had come the candidate fitness assessment: the one-mile run, the shuttle run, kneeling basketball throws, crunches, push-ups, and flexed-arm hangs. For a girl who'd run track all through high school, the mile run was the easiest. Only the twenty push-ups and sixteen-second flexed-arm hangs had taken much practice on my part, which I blamed on the fact that girls weren't permitted to do anything strength-based in high school gym class. I'd had to start from scratch, working early mornings and late nights to be ready for the fitness test, and I hadn't stopped since. I knew I'd need to far exceed those requirements at the academy itself. If the rumors I'd heard were true, each new recruit did three thousand push-ups over the course of plebe summer.

Finally, after all the application paperwork and the physical test, I'd had the interview with a Blue and Gold Officer. Mine was the father of a current midshipman who hadn't seemed all too keen on women entering the academy, but apparently he'd reported my answers and my passion faithfully nonetheless. I took it now as a sign that the Academy would be as focused on integrity and merit as I'd always imagined.

What I hadn't imagined was Nana's apathy. "Nana?"

"Sorry, Kathleen." She shook her head and stretched her lips even further into a smile that looked almost garish on my reserved grandmother. "I just want to be sure that this is what you want."

I let out a startled laugh. Nana knew this was what I wanted. She'd been by my side throughout the entire process. Before it had begun, she'd watched with me the congressional hearings as the N.O.W. president and vice president argued for women's inclusion in the service academies; before that, she'd listened to a young Kathleen talk about duty and honor and pride.

"Nana, of course this is what I want." I felt my eyebrows pull together and tried to soften my gaze for this woman who'd done everything for me. "You know that."

"I do." Nana shook her head. "I'm sorry." But she still didn't look convinced, and so I tried to remind her exactly why this had always been my dream. There were too many reasons to count. I craved the discipline and the purpose. I wanted to be selfless and honorable.

I wanted to live the life my mother wasn't.

Excerpted from The War Librarian by Addison Armstrong. Copyright © 2022 by Addison Armstrong. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.