The Best Soldier's Wife

The Best Soldier's Wife is the deeply personal story of one woman trying to cope with the shocks and aftershocks of Canada’s war in Afghanistan, told in a
series of letters from a military wife in Victoria to the wife of a fictionalized Chief of Defense Staff. In her letters she uses a number of real events to ground her story in the nitty-gritty of the actual war as it unfolded. Each letter ends with a list of the real soldiers who died during the course of her story.

Horowitz was inspired to write the novel by a local friend whose husband volunteered for duty in Afghanistan. An important part of her research involved long conversations with her friend both during and after her husband’s deployment. The wide-ranging openness and honesty of those conversations – and the husband’s help with military details – makes this an unforgettable novel that captures the raw emotions that combat brings to the fore and underlines how little is available to help families cope after a deployment ends.

This past spring, Best Soldier's Wife was shortlisted in The Great BC
Novel Contest.