Sharron's Song

About the Book

  Sam Evinston, 47, real estate broker and Vietnam veteran, apparently makes a successful recovery from lung cancer surgery.  However, knowing that the cancer could possibly return, gives him a feeling that time may be running out, a feeling he had experienced often during his combat tour in Vietnam many years before.  As a result he makes an extremely difficult decision to divorce his wife, Jean, to whom he has been married for more than 24 years, to free him to find Sharron Casey, a beautiful Australian girl he had met and fallen in love with during two brief weeks in Sydney, Australia, while on leave from the war in Vietnam.  They had planned to marry when his tour was finished, but after returning to Vietnam he had never heard from her again though he continued to write to her.

 Upon leaving the army, he returned to his hometown in Iowa.  After several unsuccessful attempts to contact her by phone he considered flying to Sydney to try to locate her.  However, he finally decided that perhaps it was best if he tried to put it behind him and go on with his life without her.  It might have been different if he had not met Jean, an attractive brunet home from the state univesrsity for the summer.  After spending the summer with her and believing that his feelings for Sharron were over, he married Jean and they moved to Florida where their son, Mark, was born.

 But over the years, despite a reasonably good, though sometimes uninteresting marriage, Sam had never forgotten the beautiful Australian girl he had loved so passionately nearly 25 years before.  During his recovery from the cancer operation, the desire to see Sharron again grew ever stronger.  Even though he realizes that if she was alive she would probably have a husband and family and that there could be nothing for them at this point in their lives, he is determined to find out what happened to her and why he had never heard from her after he left Sydney.

 After filing divorce papers, since he felt it unfair to Jean to search for Sharron while still married to her, and turning over most of his real estate business to his son, Sam flies to Sydney to be begin a search that will eventually take him to Turkey and Portugal as well as locations in the states as he gradually narrows the 25-year gap.

 As Sam continues to search for her, Sharron's life throughout the years is gradually revealed.  She had never heard from him either and when she unexpectedly discovers the reason why, it is too late.  She does not even know where he is, and since she has married she feels she has no choice but to go on with her  life without him.  But she has never forgotten the young soldier, the only man she ever really loved, and she never stops looking for him.

About the Author

Tom Leahy is a former army officer and former faculty member at the University of Florida. He holds a BA in English from the University of New Mexico and a MA in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida where he currently lives. During his tenure at the University of Florida, he served as Director of Communications for the Florida Sea Grant and Marine Advisory Programs.