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.