Karen Robards' brilliance lies in her ability to take historical events, add fictional characters, and wring us dry emotionally as her strong, independent female protagonists risk everything to follow their beliefs.

THE MOONLIGHT RUNNER takes us to Ireland in 1918. The Great War, as they called World War I, has just ended. But instead of being felled by a German-speaking enemy, people are being killed by an invisible organism known as the Spanish flu.

Living in a small Irish town on the coast is Rynn Carmichael. Rynn is from Bundoran, and she is trained as a nurse. She works at the mansion outside of town, Ballyshannon Court, which has been repurposed as a convalescent home for soldiers of the Great War. The Duke of Hartford is the owner, and his younger son, Thomas, is Rynn's patient. Thomas is in love with Rynn, but she has a childhood sweetheart, Donal O'Reilly.

It's Donal's foolhardy attempt to thwart the British and strike a blow for an independent Ireland that causes trouble from the first page. He and his friends are running illegal guns, and when Rynn overhears an officer remark at a party at Ballyshannon that they have an ambush planned, she rashly races to the beach so she can warn Donal and his friends.

"It's almost impossible not to feel engaged in the horror of what happened in Ireland as Robards brilliantly combines the explanations and descriptions with the action."

It turns out that Rynn is forced to get into the boat with the men when they are seen by the British. And just before they all would be killed in the ambush, they are saved by Owen Maguire, a taciturn businessman who has been successful after the war. But Rynn was seen, and the British suspect that she is a part of the rebel group. So when there is a threat that the British will arrest her, Thomas offers to marry her. He's in love with her, so it's no hardship for him. Rynn likes Thomas and has decided that Donal does not hold a future for her as he is too foolhardy and rash. So as much as she cares for him, she tells him that they are no longer engaged and accepts Thomas' offer.

Life with Thomas is easy. Rynn gets to experience what it's like to be an aristocrat in London as they live with his father, the duke. Thomas is a younger son, not the heir, but he's still wealthy in his own right. As the relationship between Rynn and Thomas grows, Rynn is ambushed in London by Donal and his friends, who desperately need her help and her knowledge of nursing. Because they are being hunted for their rebel activity, Rynn knows that she can't be seen with them. Maguire assists her even as he warns her to stay away from trouble.

Robards masterfully balances the story of Rynn's life with Thomas with her actions to help the rebels during the real events that happened in Ireland and England at that time. We see the creation of the Black and Tans, unemployed rank-and-file ex-soldiers who were given a mandate to stamp out the rebellion and kill any opposition. They enjoyed their assignment and cruelly executed not only their orders, but also the guilty and even those innocent of rebellion. Families were killed, and whole villages were slaughtered.

It's almost impossible not to feel engaged in the horror of what happened in Ireland as Robards brilliantly combines the explanations and descriptions with the action. Rynn is a hero, and there were many others who fought for what was right in spite of overwhelming odds against them.

One of the joys (and horrors) of reading historical fiction is the light it often shines on current events. In this magnificent novel, we see the bravery and selflessness of those who opposed oppression and fought for their rights, even in the face of extreme danger. Today, there are those who do the same.

Alphonse Karr said, "The more things change, the more they are the same." Time after time, country after country, people fight for independence and self-governance against an unjust government. Robards' novels masterfully showcase that universal truth.