Verhoeven Writes About Locals In WWII

“Peril on the Sea” is a novel by Springdale’s Jonathan D. VerHoeven that tells how three individuals—all from Arkansas—struggled through the early part of World War II in the South Pacific.

VerHoeven became fascinated with history as a boy and his passion drove him to learn more and more about it.

“I developed an interest in history and geography at a very young age,” he said. “I just sort of took to military and naval history right off.”

In those days VerHoeven said his mother took him on frequent visits to the library and that his curiosity only grew from there.

When he watched a series of videos — a documentary called “Victory at Sea” — it piqued his interest even more.

“Before I knew it I was captivated,” he said.

He went on to get a bachelor’s degree in history from John Brown University, and then a master’s degree from American Military University.

“World War II naval history has been my core interest,” VerHoeven said. “That’s the one thing I always come back to on a rainy day.”

One can enjoy “Peril on the Sea” as simply a good work of fiction, or one can learn a lot because of its historical vantage point.

Either way, if reading it helps you gain an appreciation for the significance of the Second World War, then you will have fulfilled at least a part of the author’s purpose for writing it.

VerHoeven said he wrote the novel in part to help readers to have a better understanding of World War II.

Other novels have used World War II as the setting, but VerHoeven said that many are more brutal than “Peril on the Sea.”

The war scenes in Peril on the Sea are very descriptive without delving into all the gruesome details.

But that doesn’t diminish the story at all.

“I thought I would focus on one theatre of the war,” VerHoeven said. “I wanted to do it in a Christian way. I wanted to write a Christian novel.”

The Christian perspective doesn’t drive the entire story but it does lend a great deal to it.

It helps the readers see that even during a time of war a person has to sometimes work through what is right and what is wrong. VerHoeven helps the readers see that aspect of the story as he keeps them moving with the storyline.

“World War II touched all corners of the globe,” VerHoeven said. “It was a big deal, it was cataclysmic, and we haven’t had anything like it again, thank goodness.”

The three main characters in the book all had Northwest Arkansas connections, but each had to chart a different course though the early stages of war. And the pathway of each was tumultuous in its own way.

Navy officer Preston Brown, originally from Little Rock, was aboard the USS Houston and had to struggle amidst the horrors of war as they unfolded in the story. Preston’s wife, Elaine, grew up in Springdale and found herself in Australia during the war’s outbreak. Not knowing of her husband’s whereabouts or his well-being caused her great distress, and put her faith to the test. Naval aviator Floyd Craven, also from Springdale, was a daredevil pilot who fought not only the enemy, but his own unsettled soul.

As “Peril on the Sea” approaches its conclusion, you realize that you want to know more about what the three main characters will face in the future.

And that’s a good thing because “Peril on the Sea” is the first of a four-book series.

There is much more to enjoy.

Chaos Dark is the next novel in the series, and VerHoeven has two more completed manuscripts to follow after that. He is working on the release of the other books.

“The Pacific War has been my favorite area of study my whole life,” he said. “I would like to write about other things, but until this is done I can’t focus on anything else.”

VerHoeven said he sees the 1940s as the clearest case in history of good versus evil on a global scale and that the people of that time had no choice but to try to defeat evil.

“But that’s not what the book is about,” he said. “The main focus is on developing my characters in the context of war stories.”

And that he has done very well. You would appreciate his work.