It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

Whip-smart and utterly transportive, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is historical fiction of the highest order: an unforgettable coming-of-age story, a tender romance, and a portrait of a nation on the brink of change.

Dear Ms. Simonson, 

Huzzah. A new book from you. I’d almost given up when I saw it on a “to be released” list and sprang at the chance to read it. It’s a complicated and at times melancholy and heartbreaking book. It also, yeah, takes a while to get into gear and truly had me guessing how certain things would be resolved.

Constance Haverhill is drifting in the early summer of 1919. She has been firmly eased out of the job she did to “do her part” for the war effort. Dreading becoming a governess, she gladly agrees to be a companion to a (truly sweet) elderly lady at a seaside resort and there becomes acquainted with a group of women similarly looking for the means to support themselves. The War has changed social mores and expectations, or so Constance and the other women hope. But has it really and is Constance truly a part of this society or merely there for a summer?

Rereading my review of “The Summer Before the War,” I should have remembered that your style is to slowly introduce the characters, set the scene, and only then allow the story to get going. This mimics the slower pace of life in a smaller seaside vacation town of 1919. People are not flicking and scrolling their phone screens and rushing around. Even with the gentler tempo, things are still going too quickly for middle aged characters who decry the sudden changes that are jolting their world. Meanwhile (usually wealthy) young women who see new opportunities are champing at the bit to enjoy life or, if they’re working class, are desperately attempting to find a job and scrounge a living. Those who fought and survived are learning how to live with their new realities.

Tertiary characters fill out the background and show how various social outcasts ease through this world. Naturalized German Klaus was once a sought after waiter in better hotels but made it through the war working hard in low rent jobs in London. Captain Pendra, a skilled Indian pilot, had to approach the French to get a commission before the embarrassed British would accept his credentials. Simon and Matilde de Champney have always faced racism due to their mother and the fact that their parents weren’t married. Sam might have money but it was made through trade so he’s not quite totally accepted into the golden circle. Meanwhile as one working class man says the rich live by different rules. 

Constance is inhabiting a middle ground. She’s not truly a part of the wealthy titled world that she lives in and can easily see herself sinking into the unnoticed working class. She knows that she must forge her way in the world which still views women as wives and mothers even though there is now a generation of women who will never find a husband. The camaraderie she sees in the motorcycle club draws her though some women are dilettantes and others are looking for money to supplement woeful pensions. I liked Constance and felt she was standing up for herself as well as she could in her situation. Yes, she bites her tongue at times but she has to keep on on the good side of certain characters who control her employment. But she does stick up for Mrs. Fog and that woman’s lovely second chance.  

She’s not at all sure about the brother of her new friend, Poppy. Harris has inherited a barontency but is mired in depression due to his amputation and the feeling that he should have died in the war with his friends. He is (usually) well mannered but also brittle and given to retiring from social events. A strong sense of responsibility for his former mechanic and a gift from his sister might be what drags him back even before the stark realities of the financial situation of his estate yank him out of his funk. I could understand Harris’s desire to withdraw from company, especially as we learn of past relationships that have been broken. Poppy is a character who both charmed and annoyed me. Often her heart is in the right place but she can also duck responsibility when she feels like it and makes a decision that causes a stunned Constance to tell Poppy that she just doesn’t understand the people in this (rarified) world. 

There are events and revelations that call out the racism and classism of this world. Some people will end up having to reap what they have sown. Some innocents will pay the price for jingoistic attitudes. I was annoyed at how a few people seemingly abandoned those who depended on them but at the same time, some of this was caused by the post war government policies dictating what genders could be employed. Still it stung. Rigid conventions almost upend a relationship until one person’s true colors emerge which allows the changing social mores to finally deliver what I’d been waiting for. This story is much more historical fiction with romantic elements than a romance. The pace is  leisurely. Bad things happen to some people. Other people get off the hook. But Constance’s eyes are open to what she’s going into and Harris knows that he’s found the woman he can respect and admire. B  

~Jayne

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Books have been her only solace.

Now they’re about to change her life.

London, 1775: The only surviving child of six, Dorcas Turton should have been heiress to a powerful family name. But after her mother’s untimely death, she is stunned by the discovery that her father’s compulsive gambling has brought them close to ruin. With the threat of debtor’s prison looming large, she must employ all her ingenuity to keep their creditors at bay.

Fortunately, ingenuity is something Dorcas is not short of. An avid reader, novels have taught her the lessons her governess failed to. Forsaking hopes of marriage and children, she opens a day-school for girls. But unbeknown to Dorcas, her father has not given up his extravagant ways. When bailiffs come pounding on the door, their only option is to take in lodgers.

The arrival of larger-than-life James Lackington and his wife Nancy breathes new life into the diminished household. Mr Lackington aspires to be a bookseller, and what James Lackington sets out to do, he tends to achieve. Soon Dorcas discovers she is not only guilty of envying Mrs Lackington her strong simple faith and adaptable nature. Loath though she is to admit it, she begins to envy her Mr Lackington…

Based on a true story, Jane Davis’s latest historical novel is for book-lovers everywhere, delivering unforgettable characters, a portrait of Georgian London on the brink of change, and a love song to the life-changing power of the written word.

Dear Ms. Davis, 

Books, reading books, loving books, talking about books, and getting books into the hands of others who might love them is something we love to do here. Books were something that Dorcas Turton had always loved. She used to love to sit in the library of her family’s Islington home, running her hands over the leather binding of the many books there. 

But her family, which had inherited wealth that should have seen them through generations, were forced to “retrench” once, and then again, and finally (in the middle of the night) again to the small house in London where her mother died and her father gambled away the rest of the money. 

Now having taken in sewing and teaching the daughters of “up and comers” to better themselves, Dorcas desperately ducks and dodges to keep the wolves at bay. When her father has accumulated yet another debt, and the family has nothing left that Dorcas can bear to pawn, she puts her foot down and rents out a room. Mr. and Mrs. Lackington seem nice even if her father barely hides his sneers that they are working class. Mr. Lackington is unlike any man Dorcas has met. He moves easily among all classes, adores his wife, and (luckily for Dorcas) appears at almost every moment when Dorcas needs moral support. 

Just when things are maybe looking up Dorcas’s father dies and the Lackinton’s move to live above the bookshop they’ve opened only for Mrs. Lackington to die. Not wasting much time, James Lackington, who remember had adored his wife, takes the initiative and proposes to Dorcas telling her that he knows he’s the type of man who needs a strong wife and that his beloved Nancy had urged him to remarry. 

Five years later, Dorcas and James are expanding the business and ready to try all kinds of new innovations to increase sales. Then the Gordon Riots break out around them.      

I could easily identify with Dorcas’s love of books and reading. I could also, to a lesser degree, understand her frustration with how her family’s circumstances had been increasingly diminished due to her father. My mother kept things together (as James Lackington’s mother had also done) but my family also had a time when we scaled down. I too felt frustration and anger at my father’s lack of ability or effort to support his family. I however, had more options than did Dorcas even if she was educated above the average for a woman in her time. 

One thing I think readers will agree on is supporting Dorcas’s efforts to educate the teens and tweens in her day school. She knows that most of them will be willing to sink into the proscribed roles for women but for the ones who want more, Dorcas wants them to have female role models and knowledge. One of the invented characters in the story is Patience Brine, a fourteen year old who had to begin work three years prior and whom Dorcas takes under her wing as Patience steps off the stage in London. Patience is awesome. 

James Lackington befuddles Dorcas a little. He’s a shoemaker who loves to read and wants to open a bookstore. His father’s family also had some means but James had to pull himself up by his own bootstraps, was taught to read at age fourteen, and happily fell in with a family who enjoyed discussing books around the dinner table. His first wife’s death has turned James from espousing Methodism as strongly as he did and made him willing to read beyond religious tracts. James is a born entrepreneur and willing to take gambles to improve himself and his store. He also appreciates Dorcas’s intelligence and cheerfully acknowledges how much he depends on her. 

The book is divided into two sections though, in my opinion, the second seems more like two different parts. The little details of eighteenth century life are enough to thoroughly ground the book without overwhelming it. The omniscient voice POV put me right in the middle of the action so that I could feel Dorcas’s fear at who was pounding on the door, her frantic worry as she searched for a way to pay the creditors, her sadness when her father died so soon after she realized the “gift” he had given her. In a darkly humorous scene, we see that funeral home directors have tried for centuries to guilt families into paying for more expensive services than they can afford. 

The beginning of the “five years later” part two was my favorite bit of the book. James has big ideas for the store and brainstorms ways and means to increase their foot traffic, turn their stock over, and get the word out that theirs is the best place to come and buy books. Dorcas and James work well together though he does have a tendency to keep some plans up his sleeve. Then came the last bit of the story which diverts into the horrific Gordon Riots of 1780. I can understand that with the Lackinton’s both living near and having their shop close to a major area where rioting occurred it would have affected them in real life, but I wasn’t sure why the book needed such a deep dive into it. 

The characters in the book are well rounded and realized. I didn’t think that they were just twenty-first century people in hooped skirts and powdered wigs. The marriage that Dorcas and James make is truly a marriage of convenience but it’s one that quickly moves into a marriage of equals and deep affection. I enjoyed my time among them and I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen next to all the people in the story. B

~Jayne   

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“I do not anticipate for one moment that Miss Plum has been murdered, though I should have some slight sympathy with her assassin if she had.”

Miss Penny is a middle-aged spinster living a cheerful, contented life, complete with perfect housekeeper, in an idyllic English village. Her romantic life consists of an annual Christmas card from her old flame George, and her social swirl involves Stanley, a prissy neighbour who keeps her in mind for a future wife, and Hubert, a neurotic widowed priest with an alienated son.

Into this stable life comes Miss Plum, whom Miss Penny saves from drowning herself in a duck pond and takes into her quiet, orderly home. The villagers embrace the perpetually weepy, forlorn young woman-at first. But soon her welcome wears thin. With joyfully dark comedy, hilariously odd locals, and an unexpected reappearance from long-lost George, Dorothy Evelyn Smith brilliantly evokes the havoc wreaked by social niceties, misplaced sympathies, and keeping up appearances-not to mention the urge to defend one’s peaceful existence!

CW – suicide attempts

Review

Furrowed Middlebrow strikes again in getting me to read a new-to-me British 20th century author telling a tale, with subtle, sly humor, of small village life in Yorkshire. Miss Penny, a forty year old spinster who is happily settled into her life, does a good deed for a spineless noodle of a woman and comes to bitterly regret it.

Alison Penny wakes up on her birthday knowing that certain things will happen. She will get a new knitted bed jacket from her long time live in housekeeper, Ada, that she will pretend to love and wear precisely once; she will get breakfast in bed, although Alison would prefer to eat downstairs; and a letter will arrive from her long-ago beau George whom Alison’s parents persuaded Alison to turn down twenty years ago. Two of those three actually happen this year but no letter appears from George. Deciding to spend the day in the village and watch a film, Alison goes to the duckpond to feed the ducks and discovers a crying wraith. Heading towards the gate to leave (because, crying in public – it’s just not English) Alison casts a look over her shoulder and has her life changed by the sight of this weeping woman walking into the pond.

With nowhere else to take her, Alison brings Miss Plum home with her, installs her in her second bedroom and staves off Ada’s harumphs. She won’t be there long; Miss Plum just needs a day or so to gather herself together. Only it isn’t just a day or so and Miss Plum is quite ready to spend the next month in bed if someone lets her. Neighbors weigh in with their opinions, Ada makes hers quite clear, but Alison just can’t bring herself to turn the woman out. Miss Plum is just too pathetic, gazing at everyone with tearfilled eyes.

Life in the village goes on and we see two of Miss Penny’s neighbors – the prim Stanley and the widowed Hubert who has family troubles of his own dealing with a teenaged son he doesn’t understand. Ada thought little of Miss Plum to begin with and feels less so with each passing day but honestly, what is Alison to do with the forlorn creature? Victoria Plum (Go ahead and laugh at her name! Go ahead, everyone else always has!) has latched on tighter than a tick and dissolves into tears at the least hint of her leaving. Then George appears and completely throws Alison for a loop.

This will definitely not be a book for everyone. It’s actually mainly about village life in changing rural England in the late 1950s. Miss Plum, pathetic creature that she is, is actually there to cause each person to examine his or her life. She is the spoke in someone’s wheel, the sand in their Vaseline, the pebble in their shoe. She annoys to no end but also uncovers character flaws and pricks the social conscience. Had I read this book over a year ago, I would have been astounded that Miss Penny didn’t just eventually haul Miss Plum to a social worker and take her and Ada’s lives back. But that was before a friend of mine let a distant relative-in-law move in with her and began to face some of the things that Miss Penny does.

Most of the characters in the book have their moments to shine and their scenes revealing flaws. We are none of us perfect and it only takes pressure applied in the right amount and place for the cracks to appear. Miss Penny, along with her neighbors and George have their comfy village days turned upside down and have to decide what to do about it.

Stanley is a man whom I’m not sure if the author intended him to be gay but he certainly reads that way at times. Hubert is socially awkward though well meaning and has a propensity to say or do the most annoying thing without intending to. His son Ronnie is on the cusp of being a teenager with all the issues that this entails. Ada is that longtime servant who runs the house and feels free to speak her mind. George is a man who blusters through life assuming that what he wants he will get. Of all of them, I think George will be the fly in the ointment for most readers though he swiftly realizes that Alison Penny is not the young woman he left twenty years ago.

So what will the outcome be? I had a feeling how things would turn out and I was right. I feel that everyone got their just desserts and will be left with the life they want and – for two people – that maybe they deserve each other. The glimpses of other villagers are perfect nutshell “slices of life” of days gone by. I also think that this is a book better understood and appreciated by those who are slightly older or at least know what they want from life. I’m not sure I would have appreciated it as much had I read it twenty or thirty years ago but the wry humor and truth of it entertained me now. B

~Jayne

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From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she’s expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments—especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s—Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.

Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family—by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather’s work, her father’s identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.

As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century’s most dramatic moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night’s promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol.

Dear Ms. Reay,

I remember growing up in a world with an East Germany and a West Germany, an East Berlin and a West Berlin – divided by a wall I thought would never come down in my lifetime. Then I remember watching over some weeks as the Iron Curtain disintegrated which was then followed quickly by thousands of joyous West Berliners as they danced on the remains of the wall and welcomed East Berliners over. All of which made me want to read this book once I’d read the blurb.

This is a book that I read very quickly. It’s propulsive and takes readers from the unbelievable morning after the wall went up with no warning through to when it became irrelevant. Told in first person chapters by Louisa (covering a brief week in time in 1989) and her father Haris (from 1961 through 1989), we get a glimpse into how people living in East Berlin survived the restrictions and snitches which might lead to a message to appear before the Stasi. Who could you trust and what did you dare say?

But the events that start the book, and some that preceded it, still have long term effects on some of the characters. Louisa’s family survived the war and her mother and grandmother were there when the Soviet Army swept through eastern Germany in 1945. Louisa has heard of the repression and danger of that era but it’s only when she discovers what has been going on between her Opa and her father that she truly sees how much her Oma’s memories still terrorize her. War orphaned child Haris initially viewed the Soviets as saviors which drives his acceptance of and enthusiasm for the utopian world promised by communism. It takes years of reality to change his opinion and drive him, as a journalist, to speak the truth in the only way he can.

I will be honest and say that I enjoyed reading the sections by Haris about life in East Berlin more. The gray, hazy world and the threats that everyone lived under felt more immediate and visceral. Louisa initially impressed me with her code breaking skills both at work and with the letters she finds. But once she decides to save her father, as another reviewer says, I can see why she would have been pulled from operative CIA training – even if ostensibly her lack of skills were not the reason that was done. Louisa heads into danger with a laughable plan and then proceeds to muck even that up. Had she tried to pull off what she did a day earlier – let’s just say things would not have gone well for her. I inhaled this whole section, but I was shaking my head at it, too.

The HEA seems a little sugar coated and rushed. There are parts of it

~Jayne

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Dear Paulette Kennedy:

This book was described as incorporating elements of “surrealism, history, mystery and romance” and being for fans of “Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier and historical fiction.” I was intrigued, even though the story didn’t necessarily sound like something I’d usually read.

The story begins with this provocative first line:

September 1955

The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices.

Loretta Davenport is a 27-year-old housewife and mother living in a town in the Missouri Ozarks (the fictional town is apparently based on Springfield, Missouri). As the book opens she is suffering from an unspecified flu-like illness that leaves her bedbound and depleted for several days, on the edge of delirium. She foggily worries about her husband Pete and his ability to manage the household and their two young children, Lucas and Charlotte. On the third day she rises shakily and tries to resume her normal life, but she almost immediately suffers an attack that has her falling to the floor and waking up outside in the backyard, with no idea of how she got there. Loretta also suffers a disturbing vision of being buried alive before losing consciousness.

A local girl, Darcy Hayes, has gone missing, and Loretta comes to believe that she is having visions of what happened to her. After Loretta calls in an anonymous tip to the police department, Darcy’s body is found right where she envisioned that it would be. Loretta asks Pete, who is a professor at a local Christian college, if he thinks she may be having prophetic visions, but he denies the possibility and warns her against demonic influences.

Loretta met Pete when she was 16, four years after she was involved in a car crash that killed her mother. She dropped out of high school when they married, and since then she has lived a constricted life as the wife of a man who dismisses her as a person and seems to care more about her being the appropriate testament to his domestic order. Loretta is already rebelling in small ways – she is hiding money in the house, not so much with the idea that she’ll use it to leave Pete (at least not at first) but so she can have a tiny bit of agency. She also impulsively takes her children trick-or-treating on Halloween, something Pete has previously deemed ungodly.

Loretta and Pete’s marriage is strained by his demands and negging, her previous experience with post-partum depression (she secretly uses a diaphragm, not wanting to go through pregnancy again) and his sporadic alcohol binges.

Loretta grows more rebellious after attending a lecture by a local parapsychologist, Dr. Curtis Hansen. She begins to have secret sessions with Dr. Hansen, in which she reveals the visions that have begun to distract and at times terrify her. She has visits from her dead mother, which she finds comforting. But other visitors who seem to want her to do something (sort of ala The Sixth Sense) trouble her, and when her daughter Charlotte mentions a lady who visits her at night and stands at the end of her bed, Loretta worries that they are being haunted by a malevolent presence.

Darcy Hayes’ sister asks for Loretta’s help in finding Darcy’s killer, and a trip to the police station leads to Loretta’s gifts being dismissed by the lead detective. But another detective approaches her in the parking lot about a cold case – a local girl who went missing and was never found. It turns out that this detective has ties to Dr. Hansen, and Loretta soon discovers more “gifts” – she is able to tell things about people if she holds objects that those people have owned, an ability called psychometry. (She also experiences involuntary telekinetic fits when angry – these scare her as she’s worried about hurting her children accidentally.)

All of these abilities can be traced back to the illness Loretta suffered, though she apparently had some fledgling experience with premonitions when she was younger – she suffers from guilt over her mother’s death because she had a bad feeling all that day, but didn’t know what it was or where it was coming from.

There is a lot going on in The Devil and Mrs. Davenport – there is a strong central storyline having to do with Loretta coming into her own, and butting up against the sexism of the era and of her controlling husband. In one scene she tries to open a secret bank account – she’s been making some money writing for the Kansas City Star – and is told that she can’t open an account without her husband present. She’s also dealing with past traumas, chiefly the death of her mother. Loretta’s relationship with Pete deteriorates throughout the course of the novel, and the Davenport home is crumbling literally, not just metaphorically – cracks appear in the foundation and a leak causes the bathtub to fall into the kitchen below.

There’s the mystery of Darcy’s murder and the other girl’s disappearance, as well as a girl named Joan who Loretta has premonitions of danger about. I wasn’t sure how (or if) the disparate mysteries were related, though I assumed there would be some personal connection for Loretta. As such I was suspicious of the two male leads, Pete Davenport and Dr. Curtis Hansen, though I don’t know that I was supposed to be suspicious of both of them.

On top of these two elements there’s the paranormal aspect. I hesitate to call this the weakest part of the novel, because it did serve as a way for Loretta to come into her own – her abilities gave her a sense of self-worth that had been lacking for a long time. I appreciated them as a metaphor but when Dr. Hansen talked about the phenomena as if they have scientific validity, I didn’t like it. I couldn’t reconcile my real-world beliefs with something that feels not just not real, but like a hoax, a scam. So there’s that – it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book but it was a negative for me.

The story gets increasingly gothic and nightmarish, and Loretta has to find the courage to confront the truth and vanquish an enemy, for her own sake and for her children. The ending was fine but the epilogues piled on heavy with an HEA that didn’t work for me.

I am a little ambivalent (as usual) on a grade – Loretta was a strong heroine, and the good elements were probably A-. The things I didn’t like were maybe C+, making an average grade of B. But I’d recommend this to readers who like the 1950s setting or simply are in the mood for a little something different.

Best,

Jennie

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Y’all know I love my Brontës and I get so annoyed when either adaptations of their work or stories based on their lives get EVERYTHING WRONG, DAMMIT. My Brother’s Keeper is an eerie story involving the Brontë family, werewolves, and warring cults, and, darn it, it gets everything just absolutely perfect. I was so impressed with this book even though the whole warring cults thing was the least interesting thing about it.

I’m copying the plot from the publisher’s description:

When young Emily Brontë helps a wounded man she finds at the foot of an ancient pagan shrine in the remote Yorkshire moors, her life becomes contentiously entwined with his. He is Alcuin Curzon, embittered member of a sect working to eradicate the resurgent plague of lycanthropy in Europe and northern England.

But Emily’s father, curate of the Haworth village church, is responsible for having unwittingly brought a demonic werewolf god to Yorkshire forty years ago—and it is taking possession of Emily’s beloved but foolish and dissolute brother. Curzon must regard Emily’s family as a dire threat.

In spite of being at deadly odds, Emily and Curzon find themselves thrown together in fighting werewolves, confronting pagan gods, even saving each other from the lures of moorland demons. And in a final battle that sweeps from the haunted village of Haworth to a monstrous shrine far out on the moors, the two of them must be reluctant allies against an ancient power that seems likely to take their souls as well as their lives.

When I was a kid I was heavily struck by a Michael Hauge quote (he’s a fantasy artist) in which he essentially said that the more outlandish the the things he wanted to represent, the more convincingly realistic the mundane details must be – trees and rocks and so forth have to look real if the viewer is supposed to believe in the unicorn standing amongst them. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I was reminded of this as the plot became increasingly mystical.

The story works because, first of all, the mundane details feel correct. Things that ought to be heavy do, in fact, cause the characters difficulty when they try to lift them. People have to eat and drink and sleep. Much mention is made of potatoes, either eating them or peeling them or cutting them up. Struggles are as much mundane as mystical. For instance, the characters make frequent references to their efforts to convince local government to move the town’s well uphill from the cemetery – a real-life problem for the residents of Hayworth, the village where the Brontës lived, was that the cemetery drained directly into their drinking water.

Secondly, the story works because, to me, the portrait of the Brontës, specifically Patrick, Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, Anne, their housekeeper Tabitha and Emily’s dog Keeper, is spot on. Everything they do and everything they say is perfectly in character. As bizarre as the plot is, it actually makes aspects of the Brontës’ lives make more sense rather than less. Dog fans will be especially thrilled that Keeper has a large role in the story. He is a Very Good Dog. For those that need to know how animals fare:

This is not a romance. Emily and Curzon clearly have a thing for each other, but circumstances (and history, which is why this is not a spoiler) prevent a HEA. However, the very tenuousness of their relationship, one which moves from animosity to friendship to “some unspoken thing”* makes it all the more moving. It’s a whisper of lost possibility that aches the heart.

The plot is fine. Lots of things happen. The wind wuthers about the moors, and there are ghosts and werewolves and Goddesses and terrible people and other dramatic things. It all holds together well, it’s tightly and beautifully written, it’s exciting and often scary, and it comes to a satisfying resolution.

However, the lasting impression I got from this book was one of tough women living in a tough place under tough conditions and making art and meals consisting largely of potatoes and sometimes mutton, while also caring for the people among them. Also a general spookiness, and an impression of flawed humans and animals alike trying very hard to do good things. A must read for Brontë fans, horror fans, folklore fans, and anyone who likes strongly atmospheric and character-based writing in general.

*Confession: I stole this useful phrase from Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

A story of love, madness, sisterly devotion, and control, about the two beloved daughters of renowned 1700s English painter Thomas Gainsborough, who struggle to live up to the perfect image the world so admired in their portraits.

Peggy and Molly Gainsborough—the daughters of one of England’s most famous portrait artists of the 1700s and the frequent subject of his work—are best friends. They spy on their father as he paints, rankle their mother as she manages the household, and run barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home. But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly periodically experiences bouts of mental confusion, even forgetting who she is, and Peggy instinctively knows she must help cover up her sister’s condition.

When the family moves to Bath, it’s not so easy to hide Molly’s slip-ups. There, the sisters are thrown into the whirlwind of polite society, where the codes of behavior are crystal clear. Molly dreams of a normal life but slides deeper and more publicly into her delusions. By now, Peggy knows the shadow of an asylum looms for women like Molly, and she goes to greater lengths to protect her sister’s secret.

But when Peggy unexpectedly falls in love with her father’s friend, the charming composer Johann Fischer, the sisters’ precarious situation is thrown catastrophically off course. Her burgeoning love for Johann sparks the bitterest of betrayals, forcing Peggy to question all she has done for Molly, and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another.

A tense and tender examination of the blurred lines between protection and control, The Painter’s Daughters is a searing portrait of the real girls behind the canvas. Emily Howes’s debut is a stunning exploration of devotion, control, and individuality; it is a love song to sisterhood, to the many hues of life, and to being looked at but never really seen.

CW/TW – depictions of mental illness, parental (not the Gainsboroughs) physical abuse, miscarriage 

Dear Ms. Howes, 

I know a bit about Thomas Gainsborough, as I love his portraits, but when I saw the blurb for this book I realized I know zip about his daughters even though I’ve seen Gainsborough’s portraits of them. Overall, I found this novelization of their lives to be well written and interesting though a bit uneven at times. 

It is told from the first person present view of Margaret (the younger daughter) who is also known as Peggy, Peg, and called Captain by her father and intercut with the third person present story of their grandmother for Reasons which become clear as the story progresses. We follow Peggy and her older sister Mary – aka Molly – (and the Gainsboroughs had two daughters they named Mary, the first of whom died as a young child).from a young age when they lived in Ipswich, to Bath, then ultimately to London and (just a bit) of their later life in seclusion.

Peggy gives a rundown of the household which is run by their harried mother and of how her father’s profession influences their lives. There are paintings hung everywhere, including ones of the sisters, showing Gaingborough’s talent to entice prospective clients. Their father’s work precludes him spending as much time with them as everyone would like but when he takes his kit out to the countryside to paint the landscapes that he loves, sometimes the sisters will tag along with him. As portrayed, Gainsborough is a loving father though perhaps not the best businessman as mother Margaret (whose mother’s name was also Margaret) does all the household accounts. 

Persuaded to move to fashionable Bath to increase his prospects, Peggy gives us a child’s view of a carefree life in the country which morphs into life in busy, noisy, crowded, and slightly filthy Bath. Life is good but Molly’s tendency to vanish into herself as well as wander and do other frightening things is a hint of what is to come.

I found the first part to be the most interesting. Peggy is a child of ~ eight and the way she describes her life feels that age. Later during the early years in Bath – while she’s still supposed to be fairly young – her voice feels older than it should to me. I would have preferred life in the country too, wandering fields, picking blackberries, and playing in a stream rather than Bath, no matter how interesting the people or sights. 

During the second half of the book, I felt more ill at ease but also a little bored. It’s endless rounds of parties for the sisters who are now back from their six years at a school (one of those ubiquitous schools for girls that haunt historical romance books). As their portraits had when they were children, their adult social activities were meant to serve as accessories for their father’s career. But also I knew that the Event that nearly separated the sisters as well as Molly’s final descent into mental illness were around the bend. 

The descriptions of 18th century life are not prettied up. This is particularly evident in the parts with the sisters’ grandmother. Her life was grim but she did find a cleared-eyed way out of it. Thoughts regarding how she did this might differ but she had a goal and she got it. Early in the book, Peggy mentions a series of eight (Hogarth) prints that the family has which (from her description) are illustrating Bedlam. This horrible place is how we begin to see what might happen to Molly if she’s deemed to be “mad” and why Peggy works so hard to cover up her sister’s symptoms. But yes, there is a degree of becoming her sister’s keeper involved as well. I can also understand – as it’s shown – why Molly might have tried to throw over the traces at one point in order to try to live a normal life. 

The sparse details of their lives and the possible backstory of their mother and grandmother are wound into an interesting explanation of the sisters’ lives. I like that the events for which there is no evidence other than the known personalities of the people involved are mentioned in the afterwards note. It’s sad that Peggy’s and Molly’s lives couldn’t remain as happy as they were as children chasing a white butterfly in a garden as their father painted them. B-

~Jayne   

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In an exuberant post WWII New York City, a young woman is forced to reinvent her life and choose between the safe and the ethical, and the men who represent each…

Set in New York City in the heady aftermath of World War II when the men were coming home, the women were exhaling in relief, and everyone was having babies, The Trouble With You is the story of a young woman whose rosy future is upended in a single instant. Raised never to step out of bounds, educated in one of the Sister Seven Colleges for a career as a wife and mother, torn between her cousin Mimi who is determined to keep her a “nice girl”—the kind that marries a doctor—and her aunt Rose who has a rebellious past of her own, Fanny struggles to raise her young daughter and forge a new life by sheer will and pluck. When she gets a job as a secretary to the “queen” of radio serials—never to be referred to as soaps—she discovers she likes working, and through her friendship with an actress who stars in the series and a man who writes them, comes face to face with the blacklist which is destroying careers and wrecking lives. Ultimately, Fanny must decide between playing it safe or doing what she knows is right in this vivid evocation of a world that seems at once light years away and strangely immediate.

CW – antisemitism, death of a character, misogyny

Dear Ms. Feldman,

When I read the blurb for this book, I will admit that I hoped it would be similar to “Lessons in Chemistry,” as I seem to have recently acquired a liking for 1950s era books in which women find their ovaries and stand up to discrimination. Yay, it is. It is also a take-down of the HUAC that upended the lives of people across the US and not just in the entertainment industry. Fanny never sets out to “stick it to the Man” yet ends up doing just that.

Since I knew that Fanny would be widowed, I spent the first chapter or two on edge as we got to see Fanny, Max and their daughter Chloe happy at a family wedding, then there was a bit about Fanny’s family dynamics (important for Aunt Rose who I loved), Fanny and Max’s short marriage before he ships out for Europe (with Fanny hoping that the red crosses on the medical tents would keep Max safe), and then the little bit of time they’d have after 1945. This is important because once Max dies and Fanny is broken, these scenes show why she mourns Max so much. As she takes her widowed cousin Mimi’s place as the “Poor” Widow of the family, Fanny finally realizes that she can’t live off Max’s life insurance payout forever. Canny Aunt Rose sees an opportunity and, as she fits a new suit for a woman who runs “radio serials,” she pushes Fanny’s skills.

Soon Fanny is a private secretary and learning all about how soap operas (a term never to be used at work) are produced, meeting the voice talent, and being taken aback by a handsome man who is equally talented and cheeky. He also knows Aunt Rose and pulls back the curtain on a relationship in that woman’s life of which Fanny had no knowledge. But Charlie Berlin is not the kind of man Fanny is used to nor does she want or expect anything from him. The polio scares faced by America each summer bring another man into Fanny’s life – a nice pediatrician who went to med school with Max.

When Charlie pushes his desire to needle those working to muzzle commies too far and a talented actress’ past work for causes that aren’t considered “nice” (she picketed “Birth of a Nation” and raised money for the NAACP) gets her blacklisted, Fanny sees how it tears their lives apart. Aunt Rose won’t let Fanny ignore other people who’ve been hurt either. Soon Fanny realizes that she’s going to have to choose. Does she want safe but constricting or a chance to do work that invigorates her alongside a man who believes in her.

The first part of the novel swept me along. I inhaled 130 pages and kept reading until I could barely hold my head up. The book was practically reading itself and I was along for the ride. Fanny’s life wasn’t all charming as she had to raise Chloe without a husband during the war, and all too soon she was a widow in a world that pities widows and doesn’t expect women to work. Somehow the work she eventually finds is something she comes to enjoy. Cousin Mimi wants another man to take care of her and chides Fanny for not latching onto a way back into being a woman who lunches but Fanny enjoys using her mind and, before long, her talent and what she learned in Barnard.

But the vague whispers of people being called before committees to account for their real or supposed communist beliefs becomes real as Fanny sees actors written out of soaps and writers kicked out of jobs. When Charlie comes to her with a proposal, Fanny has to decide what is more important – helping someone who has selflessly helped others or staying on her high horse of morals. That decision in turn makes her rethink what kind of relationship she’ll choose. She loved and lost once then crawled out of the heartbreak to make a life for herself and her daughter. Fanny knows it isn’t just herself who will be affected by the life choice she makes but Chloe, too.

I had a pretty good idea which way Fanny would go. I like that both men were actually good people but just with different views of life and that did make me a little annoyed at how wishy-washy Fanny got as she tried to choose. I could see her being torn for a while but after that, go or get off the pot Fanny. The historical details and setting are well done. The relationship between Fanny and Chloe is realistic but sweet, too. Aunt Rose is a pistol. It didn’t quite live up to what I hoped for but it came pretty darn close. B

~Jayne

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Maybe women can have it all, as long as they’re willing to steal it.

1925. London. When Alice Diamond, AKA “Diamond Annie,” is elected the Queen of the Forty Elephants, she’s determined to take the all-girl gang to new heights. She’s ambitious, tough as nails, and a brilliant mastermind, with a plan to create a dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen. Alice demands absolute loyalty from her “family”—it’s how she’s always kept the cops in line. Too bad she’s now the target for one of Britain’s first female policewomen.

Officer Lilian Wyles isn’t merely one of the first female detectives at Scotland Yard, she’s one of the best detectives on the force. Even so, she’ll have to win a big score to prove herself, to break free from the “women’s work” she’s been assigned. When she hears about the large-scale heist in the works to fund Alice’s new dynasty, she realizes she has the chance she’s been looking for—and the added bonus of putting Diamond Annie out of business permanently.

TW/CW – Extreme domestic/gender violence 

Review

First let me say that as of right now, based on reviews I’ve read, my viewpoint is very much in the minority regarding this book. The cover and the blurb promised me a great book set among female thieves in 1920s London being chased by a wonderful female detective. That isn’t what I got. Not by a long shot. 

Things start very slowly but then there are four main characters whose backgrounds have to be sketched in plus we have to be given information about the Forty Elephants – the all female criminal gang of (mainly) hoisters (shoplifters) that Alice Diamond runs. Female police inspector Lilian Wyles is one of the few women still on the police force after the men came home from war and she’s raring to prove herself in this man’s world by taking down Alice and the Elephants. Hira is an eleven year old biracial girl sent back to England by her British father and Indian mother. When news of their death reaches London, Hira flees from her Uncle’s house rather than be shipped off to a ghastly girl’s school (little better than Lowood School) in Northumberland. Dorothy is a shop assistant looking to improve her life and thinks she’s on her way when her boss singles her out and they begin an affair. 

The pace of the book is agonizingly slow, things are repeated to the point I was groaning out loud for the plot to get moving, and I quickly realized that few of these characters were people I wanted or could root for. Alice is supposed to be such a hard-as-nails leader of this gang but all she does is set them up for small time heists that don’t seem to bring in enough money to give the women more than a good night out at pubs. She’s also supposed to be keeping the gang in line and looking out for them but is incompetent at doing either. Her best ideas come from either eleven year old Hira or the male crime boss in the area. She keeps thinking she needs to check on one particular gang member but when she discovers that woman is being beaten up by her boyfriend, Alice lets things go for a week before checking on Ruth again. Alice also knows she ought to save money for the Big Reason in the plot but — nah, screw it, she wants a night out. Case a potential heist? She’ll have someone do it later. Put pressure on someone to get what she wants? She’ll threaten the guy by telling him that the men from the male gang will rough him up. Alice did not impress me at all. 

Hira at least has the gumption to leave a bad situation. She’s eleven so I don’t expect her to think much ahead and she soon sees that the East End of London is nothing like Mayfair. Yet before too long, Hira is smoothly pickpocketing as if she’s done it all her life including lifting the wallet of one of Alice’s fences. That was absurd and no, I don’t believe this at all. Hira also appeals to almost everyone and soon has all three MC women looking out for her despite not knowing her for long. 

Lilian has worked hard to establish her credentials as a competent policewoman. She’s studied, worked hard, and won’t let any man treat her first as a woman and second as a policewoman. She thinks that collaring Alice and the Elephants will be her big break and lead to her fellow police officers finally respecting her. After reading everything she can about gangs, she knows that they usually have hideouts and headquarters but after following known Elephants to a run down building, it takes her about 30 minutes to clue into what she’s found. “Oh, wait! This could be the headquarters!” Yeah, Lilian, you figured it out. 

Dorothy is sadly the silliest of them. Dorothy has been told all her life by her mother and others that she’s not that smart. She is pretty and talented with dress design but gullible is a kind word to use for her. From the moment she lets herself start being taken advantage of by her sleeze of a boss, I was counting down to when she’d finally realize what was happening. When the penny drops, Dorothy is filled with self righteous rage and plans to confront someone who has done her wrong but then … doesn’t. She finally (!) does let rip but, as she marches out, now she’s just unemployed and publicly humiliated. Yay, Dorothy. 

The pace needed to be faster. The writing was serviceable but not dazzling. There is a huge degree of grimness in the lives of these characters but mainly I wanted some competence from these women. It is almost painful for Alice to be described as ruthless and “a brilliant mastermind” only to repeatedly see that she isn’t. Lilian seems to spend all her time basically doing nothing useful despite being “one of the best detectives on the force.” Dorothy is sweet but the people in her life really haven’t been lying to her. Hira just wants to survive so I’ll accept this eleven year old doing whatever it takes despite most of that going against her moral code. I made it to the 82% mark and thought, no, I don’t care to continue any further. So I’m DNFing it this close to the finish line. It does have a beautiful cover though …    

~Jayne
       

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A brilliant and witty drama about two brave female World War II veterans who survived the unthinkable without ever losing their killer instinct…or their joie de vivre.

Meet the Williamson sisters, Britain’s most treasured World War II veterans. Now in their late nineties, Josephine and Penny are in huge demand, popping up at commemorative events and history festivals all over the country. Despite their age, they’re still in great form—perfectly put together, sprightly and sparky, and always in search of their next “excitement.”

This time it’s a trip to Paris to receive the Légion d’honneur for their part in the liberation of France. And as always, they will be accompanied by their devoted great-nephew, Archie.

Keen historian Archie has always been given to understand that his great aunts had relatively minor roles in the Women’s Royal Navy and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, but that’s only half the story. Both sisters are hiding far more than the usual “official secrets”. There’s a reason sweet Auntie Penny can dispatch a would-be mugger with an umbrella.

This trip to Paris is not what it seems either. Scandal and crime have always quietly trailed the Williamson sisters, even in the decades after the war. Now armed with new information about an old adversary, these much decorated (but admittedly ancient) veterans variously intend to settle scores, avenge lost friends, and pull off one last, daring heist before the curtain finally comes down on their illustrious careers.

The archaic British expression “to spend a penny” is a euphemism that means you need to go to the toilet.

Dear Ms. Wray,

Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant. I loved this book from start to finish. Combining two interests of mine – an older one about WWII and a new one I seem to have recently acquired for older main characters – it’s funny, heartbreaking at times, and perfectly brings everything down the home stretch for a fabulous finish.

I list it as just “timeline” as there are actually multiple ones in the book which follows eighty years of two incorrigible, indomitable sisters who are close to their 100th birthdays who have a few secrets left and issues to be dealt with. Though they weren’t close as youngsters, Penny and Josephine have come through a lot over the years. One of the best things in their lives is the arrival (thirty five years ago) of their young great-nephew Archie whom they take under their wing and to whom they begin to teach the finer things in life: How to fish, how to swear, and how to pull off a boss defendu move. When Archie accidentally breaks a lamp demonstrating that, Josephine happily presses a check for the cost into Archie’s mother’s hand as Josephine smiles with pride.

I don’t want to spoil any of the secrets by telling too much about the plot. It’s intricate, carefully woven and does the best thing for me – leave a bread crumb trail to back up what happens without totally giving the game away. I did guess one thing but so much springs from that bit that I was still thrilled at the end. But the rest? Wheels within plot wheels. Things fold back on past events then spring forward to now. Friends might end up enemies or on the other side of a double cross. The granddaughter of an admiral annoys everyone with her naval whistle but along with a nun, whose Morse code skills are better than Penny ever guessed, they – and a hen party in Paris – arrive in time to help save the day. Or rather they try to, but Archie, Penny, and Josephine have some tricks up their sleeves and a magnificent emerald ring somewhere else.

Penny and Josephine are well rounded characters but aren’t turned into quirky oldsters. They make mistakes and hold onto grudges but they learn from them. Their intentions are (usually) the best. They think the world of Archie and support his “toujours gay.” Their marriages aren’t what people think but the sisters allow people to think what they want. They both worked to support the Allied cause during World War II but their service might not be what people think it was.

I love how the world (and the Paris police) gets truly schooled about how these nonagenarians aren’t out to pasture. That a piece of German shrapnel is a handy thing to hang onto. That the spirit of Robin Hood isn’t dead. That DNA from Archie overcoming his aversion to spit leads to something wonderful. How Penny and Josephine have each other’s backs. And the outcome of the SOE jump is something I never saw coming. This is a marvelous book which I highly recommend. A

~Jayne

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For readers of Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier and Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles, an evocative, morally complex novel set in rural 19th century North Carolina, as one woman fights to keep her family united, her farm running, and her convictions whole during the most devastating and divisive period in American history.

Talk of impending war is a steady drumbeat throughout North Carolina, though Joetta McBride pays it little heed. She and her husband, Ennis, have built a modest but happy life for themselves, raising two sons, fifteen-year-old Henry, and eleven-year-old Robert, on their small subsistence farm. They do not support the Confederacy’s position on slavery, but Joetta considers her family to be neutral, believing this is simply not their fight.

Her opinion is not favored by many in their community, including Joetta’s own father-in-law, Rudean. A staunch Confederate supporter, he fills his grandsons’ heads with stories about the glory of battle and the Southern cause until one night Henry runs off to join the war. At Joetta’s frantic insistence, Ennis leaves to find their son and bring him home.

But soon weeks pass with no word from father or son and Joetta is battered by the strain of running a farm with so little help. As the country becomes further entangled in the ramifications of war, Joetta finds herself increasingly at odds with those around her – until one act of kindness brings her family to the edge of even greater disaster.

Though shunned and struggling to survive, Joetta remains committed to her principles, and to her belief that her family will survive. But the greatest tests are still to come – for a fractured nation, for Joetta, and for those she loves . . .

CW – description/discussion of miscarriage, derogatory description of enslaved people

Dear Ms. Everhart,

This was not an easy book to read. Civil Wars divide families, friends, and neighbors. Even those who want to stay apart will usually get drawn in eventually as do the McBrides. But healthy servings of guilt and pain also haunt Joetta as her world crashes around her.

The blurb doesn’t truly reveal the unpopular stance Joetta takes after rumors of coming war finally reach their small town in Nash County, North Carolina. After her father-in-law fills her restless older son’s head with visions of glory on a battlefield of a war that will soon be won, Henry leaves in the night. Ten days later, after the boy should have reached Raleigh and been turned away due to his age, Joetta guilts her husband into going after him only for Ennis to now be caught up in it as well. Refusing to let her neighbors believe that her menfolk have joined the Glorious Cause, Joetta begins to earn stares and whispers. After she allows NC Union troops to water their horses at her farm, things begin to get ugly with, at times, her father-in-law leading the charge.

Joetta staunchly refuses to change her mind and her neutrality although, after a visit from troublemakers ruins their corn and sorghum crops, she tempers her public outspokenness and tries to fade into the background. Then devastating news reaches her before someone new arrives to give her hope only for this to be followed by worse troubles. Can the McBrides who are left hang on in the face of angry resentments and desperate deserters?

There were times I cheered Joetta and her determination to hold onto her convictions. The easy way was there all the time but even biting her tongue was hard for Joetta in the face of needling comments designed to catch her out. She also had to deal with her younger twelve year old son who has lost the two men most important in his life and who now must help his mother wrest a living from the farm. Feeling her son slip away into resentment and pain at his own losses hurts Joetta even more. Yet there were also times when I yelled through my ereader at Joetta to just play along, read the room, and try to keep from upsetting those who could, and did, arrive with harmful intentions.

Joetta stubbornly sticks to her guns and there was one point where she ruminated on the fact that someone in her life called her pigheaded. Yep, that’s a good description. I kept feeling that she could have handled things better and still held onto her beliefs while also keeping her son and crippled father-in-law a bit safer. The middle of the book meanders around a bit with a lot of repetition of how the McBrides survive while the ending drags a little. Could they have managed through a harsh winter and two summers as they did? Possibly but it’s a stretch.

I think the two books listed above the blurb are accurate as far as which readers might enjoy this book. It is a hard look at a hard time. Though the McBrides and most of their neighbors don’t own enslaved people, there are some large plantations with owners who do. Nasty reasons for people to support the Confederate cause are mentioned. Sadly some of the attitudes are not ones that have died away in the century and a half and crop up in daily news now. Holding onto the courage of your convictions at any time when those convictions run counter to the prevailing viewpoints is challenging. There is much to admire about Joetta but watching her fight against the current leads to a darker story. B-

~Jayne

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Based on true World War II stories of life in the USO variety shows, worlds collide when performers from around the United States come together to tour North Africa.

Vibrant and scrappy Maggie McCleod tried not to get fired from her wartime orchestra, but her sharp tongue landed her in trouble, so an overseas adventure with the USO’s camp show promises a chance at a fresh start. Wealthy and elegant Catherine Duquette signs with the USO to leave behind her restrictive life of privilege and to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the handsome pilot whose letters mysteriously stopped arriving.

The two women are joined by an eclectic group of performers–a scheming blues singer, a veteran tap dancer, and a brooding magician–but the harmony among their troupe is short-lived when their tour manager announces he will soon recommend one of them for a coveted job in the Hollywood spotlight. Each of the five members has a reason to want the contract, and they’ll do whatever is necessary to claim it. As their troupe travels closer to the dangerous battlefront in Tunisia, personal crises and wartime dangers only intensify, putting not only their careers but also their lives on the line.

Dear Ms. Green,

What a lovely cover for this book and double yay that one of the female performers actually has a green dress that she wears. I’ve grumbled about how so many books about WWII currently being published are mainly about libraries (and I love libraries) so when I read the blurb for “The Foxhole Victory Tour” I immediately wanted to get my hands on it. Just so readers here will know, there is a (very) slight romance thread in it but the story is mainly about friendships, found family, and self discovery.

During WWII, two young women are living their dreams of performing their music in public but are also still facing misogynistic attitudes, silly wardrobe requirements, and personal issues. Just when Maggie has quit this job, she’s approached with an offer to audition for a smaller (not the big show with Bob Hope) USO troupe. Surprisingly, another woman also seeks out this chance and Maggie finds herself speaking up for Catherine. Both are approved to join the three other acts of the show but an announcement that one of the five performers might be recommended to audition for what could be a once-in-a-lifetime break threatens to sow discord among them. Will they be up to the rigors of the North African tour and what will they discover about themselves along the way?

The book does a great job showing how “the show must go on” under trying and dangerous circumstances. There are also wonderful details about the cities in which the characters found themselves. The religious aspects of the story are handled with a light hand and mainly there to help highlight what Maggie and Catherine discover about themselves. Kudos for including a song important to a Jewish member of the performers.

I liked that each performer had genuine reasons for not only wanting but needing the “big break.” Catherine has another reason why she wants to join the smaller tour, too. She’s desperate to escape from her managing parents but also hoping to find the man with whom she’s falling in love. Maggie grew up with a father devoted to his Salvation Army work who takes a dim view of her playing in a band. She wants to prove that she can stick to a job as well as play something on her trumpet other than hymns. Older singer Judith knows this might be her last chance to make it big; as a 4F, younger magician Gabriel can’t fight but needs to prove that he’s doing something for the war effort; while older vaudeville performer Howie lived through the Great War, knows how soldiers need a boost, and wants to keep doing so in honor of the wife he loved.

The story mainly focuses on Maggie and Catherine. Maggie finds that doing these shows for the troops fills a need she didn’t know she had. She realizes that even trumpet playing and telling jokes can help the war effort by boosting morale. Catherine has been pampered and sheltered all her life. Overhearing others doubt that she’s got the grit to stick out the touring conditions stiffens her resolve to prove to herself and them that she does as well as finally break free from her parents’ control. When push comes to shove, she reaches deep and makes her own decisions rather than letting others do that.

The little bits of details that round out the other performers are naturally introduced into the story when needed rather than info-dumped early on. Every person has their moments of being thoughtless, unlikeable or just grouchy (the touring conditions really are difficult) but slowly they begin to meld into friends who care for each other and act for each other including something lovely that four of them do for Catherine. As one says, finding people with whom you want to perform with is a gift. On this journey they also discover something greater than themselves. None of them can actually join the fighting but they can and will do this – try and cheer up those who going into harm’s way including the ones doing work behind the lines such as the WAACs (who, because they were women, had to initially prove their worth) and the refugees and political prisoners in labor camps. I really enjoyed this different WWII setting and watching the characters bond and become like family. B+

~Jayne

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1469. England is in turmoil. For almost ten years, the attractive and charismatic Edward IV has ruled with the Earl of Warwick’s support, but now rebellion threatens the fragile peace.

Young and determined, Isobel Fenton is resolved that nothing will separate her from her beloved manor of Beaumancote, even if it does mean marrying Thomas Lacey. But Isobel is unaware of the importance she and her land represent nor of the agenda of the formidable Earl in whose care she finds herself. As an unseen witness to a summary execution, she is propelled into the world of personal feuds and national politics, and as unrest boils into war, Isobel is drawn into the very heart of the conflict. Can she escape from the web in which she is trapped, and can she find her way home?

CW – on page death, on page child abuse, off page rape and later continued sexual assault

Dear Ms. Dunn,

Your new book kicking off a series about the English War of the Roses comes with an amazing cover plug from Elizabeth Chadwick. Plus it’s a gorgeous cover anyway and I’m weak when faced with a gorgeous cover. It’s also well researched and plunks the reader into 1460s England with all the good and the bad. There’s a whole lot of bad. There’s also no romance.

Isobel is a young child when she sees death. In a scene of revenge, the Earl to whom her father owes allegiance and from whom he was awarded the manor house they live in, chases down enemies on horseback and drags them there after which a man is beheaded. Four years later, Isobel’s father dies leaving her an orphan. She is *not* from a powerful family nor is her inherited estate that grand. It is in a strategic location and unrest is simmering. She is ordered to the power base castle where the Earl lives and begins helping take care of the Earl’s youngest daughters – plain Margaret and … hmm, how to describe her … “challenging” Cecily. This whole section is fairly slow.

Isobel’s wants and needs play no part in how she is treated. She is a pawn, she is a person with little standing even though she is the daughter of a knight and a lady. The nursery is ruled by the aunt (who is a bitch from hell) of the Countess (also bitch) who adheres to the belief of “spare the rod, spoil the child.” The Countess couldn’t care less about these two daughters but she is determined to hang onto every jot of power her position gives her. There is a fellow worker in the nursery who is shrewd and also determined to take advantage of every opportunity she can. This is a “dog eat dog world.”

The Earl, who holds the power of deciding whom Isobel will marry and thus who will gain control of Isobel’s estate, decides to deny her marriage to a young man she had thought she would be betrothed to. Isobel is scared of the Earl but is beginning to fall for his widowed brother who always seems to notice when she is around. Isobel is the only person to treat Meg and Cecily with kindness, she has herbal skills taught to her by her mother, her every move seems to anger the Countess and that woman’s aunt, and there is a spymaster always watching everyone’s every move. Oh, and the Duke of Gloucester is friendly to Isobel, too. Then comes the moment when the Earl becomes obsessed with Isobel. This is where the rape comes in.

Yes, the book is beautifully researched and I certainly felt I was seeing a world far, far different from what we have today. These are not twenty first century characters dressed in kirtles or houppelandes. They act as one would expect them to. I just don’t want to read any more about them. I also thought it was bizarre that so many people seem to be obsessed with Isobel. I mean really fixated on this woman who, it has been made clear, is not that important in the overall scheme of a country in the middle of the War of the Roses. She’s not quite a Mary Sue but she’s not far from it. At this point, I was 2/3 of the way through the book. It was also at this point that I realized that I either didn’t like or didn’t care what happened to anyone in the book and that I am not interested in continuing the series. So, I’m calling it quits on this one. DNF

~Jayne

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The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is a sparkling historical novel of wild and wonderful mechanical automata, love in a variety of forms, and gentle themes of identity, with a cast of fabulous characters.

In 1755, Abel Cloudesley, a London watchmaker and creator of remarkable mechanical automata, is mourning his wife, Alice, who died giving birth to their son, Zachary. Six years later, Abel is further devastated when a freak workshop accident takes Zachary’s eye. With his new eye made of gold and lapis by Abel’s soft-spoken apprentice Tom, Zachary, now with an astonishing gift of second sight, is sent to live with his eccentric Aunt Franny in the country. Abel buries himself in work until he is coerced by shadowy figures into designing a chess-playing automaton and delivering it to Constantinople to spy on the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After meeting the Sultan, Abel is not heard from again. Years later, teenage Zachary receives a letter suggesting that his father is still alive, a prisoner of the Sultan. Zachary sets off on a perilous journey to the Levant, determined to find Abel and bring him safely home.

Dear Mr. Lusk, 

Wow, that was different. And for the most part I mean that as a compliment. It really is the characters who make this book but the characters are backed by enough of the (extensive) research you did that they are firmly grounded in the mid eighteenth century they inhabit. I will slightly alter the blurb by saying that it isn’t the false eye that is fashioned for him that gives Zachary Cloudesley his visions and second sight. No, he’s born with that and more which all appear to be inherited from the mother who died giving birth to him. CW Alice Cloudesley doesn’t die on page but there are descriptions of the after scene. She and Abel also lost three daughters at birth before Zachary was born.

To try and describe the intricate turns of the plot would take far too long but I think that three characters who are not in the blurb need some introduction. Mrs. Morely and her daughter Leonora arrive in the lives of the Cloudesley men when Abel needs a wetnurse for his newborn son and that wetnurse is unwilling to farm out her own daughter. Honestly I would have loved to have spent an entire book with Grace Morely instead of the few chapters told from her first person POV. She is a strong, no nonsense woman who stands on her own two feet, fights for what she wants and deserves, and dishes out her opinion regardless of whether it’s asked for or wanted. I love her. Leonora finds love but I never quite got a good sense of her beyond maybe chafing at life in general before she seems to settle for the conventional by the end of the story. 

Tom Spurrell begins as a shy young man in Abel’s workshop before one look from Aunt Franny reveals that Tom is actually a woman. Or is he? What Tom is, though, is a remarkable craftsperson who not only tirelessly brings Abel’s ideas to fruition but later journeys with Abel to Turkey and loyally stays there after Abel disappears within the seraglio. When Zachary arrives looking for his father, it is to find that Tom has built a new life for himself; one that he vigorously and emphatically defends to Aunt Franny. No, this is who he is and he won’t stand for being identified otherwise. 

Abel and Zachary are at the heart of the story and though, at times, they have reasons to question whether or not the other truly loves them, the reader knows that all along each would give his life for the other. Many times Abel must send Zachary away but for justifiable reasons – the need for a wetnurse, to recover after his accident, and to protect him from the forces who threaten him to strongarm Abel into a journey to the Ottoman court. But when Zachary is still a child, it’s hard for him to grasp these reasons. Zachary’s reticence in revealing to Abel something told to him as a deathbed confession plus Zachary’s heartache at the time, lead Abel to despair that his son understands the events that caused their longest separation and the ones before. Still the fact that these two aren’t immediately reconciled seems realistic. The scene which sets it all right is emotional and tender. 

For a long while I worried about one particular relationship. We are given hints of Zachary’s relationship preferences which, given the laws in England at the time, seemed impossible. Then there is a moment of hope which seems to also be dashed. It takes Zachary’s Aunt Franny’s bizarre will to set a possible solution in motion. Aunt Franny is … a bit of a pill to be honest. There are times when I admired her, times when I didn’t understand her, and times when I wanted to put her in the cage with Catherine the Great. I’ll give her credit for being complex and generally running her life as she wants in a time when most women couldn’t do that. 

I feel that I need to emphasize that this is a very, very character driven novel. There are lots of descriptions and lots more characters than I’ve discussed. Then there are a few things that led to my earlier statement that I enjoyed it “for the most part.” Frankly I feel that I would have liked to have seen more of Zachary’s “gift” plus the middle of the story suffers from a feeling that its mechanism wound down a bit, leading to a little bit of a drag in the pace. The whole slots together with bits and pieces finally fitting and locking into place but it’s a book that rewards patience. B      

~Jayne

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In 1920s Edinburgh, Scotland, Evelyn Hazard is a young, middle-class housewife living the life she’s always expected—until her husband, Robert, upends everything with a startling announcement: he can communicate with the dead.

The couple is pulled into the spiritualist movement—a religious society of mediums and psychics that emerged following the mass deaths of the Spanish flu and First World War—and Evelyn’s carefully composed world begins to unravel. And when long-held secrets from her past threaten to come to the surface, presenting her with the prospect of losing all she holds dear, Evelyn finds herself unable to avoid the question: is the man she loves a fraud, a madman, or—most frighteningly—is he telling the truth?

Cloaked in the moody, beguiling backdrop of twentieth-century Scotland, Anbara Salam’s Hazardous Spirits brings a sparkling sense of period detail and dry humor to the life of a young woman whose world is unsettled by mediums and spirits, revealing the devastating secrets that ghosts from the past can tell when given the voice to do so.

Dear Ms. Salam,

There is so much that I enjoyed about “Hazardous Spirits.” The characters are interesting, the setting and period details are wonderfully done. It’s got subtle humor. There’s a great slowly growing gothicky goodness to it. Watching Evie and Robert’s marriage strain and risk cracking due to the plot raises the tension. But then came the end. I’m not quite sure what to do with the end.

Evie is a middle class married woman in 1920s Edinburgh. Her family used to be wealthy but bad financial decisions on her father’s part lost the family estate and their way of life. Then came the war, the flu, the death of a daughter, and oh, yes that event of Evie’s that no one knows about. Now she’s married to Robert, an orphan, who is an accountant and who, up until when the book starts, was a bit staid. He’s just told Evie that he can talk to spirits and Evie – she’s stunned at the revelation. A family doctor who is called away from a formal dinner to examine Robert informs Evie that her husband is either sick, faking, or telling the truth. It will take Evie the entire book to decide which. But even with what she’s learned, does she really know?

I usually don’t care for books that drop me into dark and swirling plot waters that I don’t have a clue as to how deep they are and if “here be monsters” in them. For this story, I was willing to go along for the ride to find out more. The setting is nicely laid out with enough period detail to set me in this time and place. There’s enough but not a pile on just to show how much research was done. Well done. But there’s also the feel of the time from the prewar years through to now when the country is grappling with the loss of a generation of young men and the grief that goes along with that. As one former soldier tells Evie, “It’s a land of ghosts, now. For the rest of us.”

At first Evie is embarrassed by Robert’s claims. What will the neighbors think? What will her family think? Her father might have torpedoed the family finances but they still have some social standing and he’s not thrilled with the thought of a son-in-law who talks to spirits. No, that just won’t do as the family has also had (gasp) a divorce and mother couldn’t stand any more scandal. Until Robert comes to his senses, they won’t be associating with Evie and her husband. Evie’s younger sister Kitty stings Evie with what Evie sees as (milder) disapproval. Well, at least Evie won’t have to feign interest in her niece now as Evie is not maternal at all.

As Robert delves into the world of spiritualism, Evie is at first worried about what people will think – her apple hasn’t fallen quite as far from the family tree as she might wish. Then as she sees him in action, she begins to wonder if Robert really can contact the dead. Robert is working with a child medium genius who knows things that Evie can’t fathom how Clarence would know in any other way. When Robert also manifests similar talents, Evie is on the edge of being convinced and also worried about her past coming to light from a spirit who knows what happened.

The story is more women’s fiction and self discovery. Evie’s is the only POV shown and there were times I felt for her and times I felt like shaking her. She can be self centered, glass-(more-than)-half-empty, ready to believe the worst, irritating, and delighted to latch onto the social world of Bright Young Things who are following the fad for spiritual mediums. She acutely feels the loss of the status her family once had and suffers agonies of embarrassment when she thinks Robert is going to do or say the wrong thing. Watching the idle rich be idle and silly also got up my nose a time or two.

I wasn’t sure what the final verdict would be on Robert’s “gift.” Robert seems guileless and genuine but then, wouldn’t fake spiritualists act that way? His child mentor gives Evie creepy vibes at times but he’s a child and Evie isn’t thrilled with those. I also got tired with the references to how Evie’s gastrointestinal system (53 references to her stomach and 4 to her bowels, yes I counted) behaves when she’s stressed and the pace of the middle section dragged a bit. Then came the end which left me with that feeling you get when you’re going downstairs and accidentally miss a step. Is there a sequel planned? Or are we to guess what will happen after the last sentence is spoken? I’m honestly not sure. B/C+

~Jayne

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Consumed with grief, driven by vengeance, a man undertakes an unrelenting odyssey across the lawless post–Civil War frontier seeking redemption in this fearless novel from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of News of the World.

Union soldier John Chenneville suffered a traumatic head wound in battle. His recovery took the better part of a year as he struggled to regain his senses and mobility. By the time he returned home, the Civil War was over, but tragedy awaited. John’s beloved sister and her family had been brutally murdered.

Their killer goes by many names. He fought for the North in the late unpleasantness, and wore a badge in the name of the law. But the man John knows as A. J. Dodd is little more than a rabid animal, slaughtering without reason or remorse, needing to be put down.

Traveling through the unforgiving landscape of a shattered nation in the midst of Reconstruction, John braves winter storms and confronts desperate people in pursuit of his quarry. Untethered, single-minded in purpose, he will not be deterred. Not by the U.S. Marshal who threatens to arrest him for murder should he succeed. And not by Victoria Reavis, the telegraphist aiding him in his death-driven quest, yet hoping he’ll choose to embrace a life with her instead.

And as he trails Dodd deep into Texas, John accepts that this final reckoning between them may cost him more than all he’s already lost…

Dear Ms. Jiles,

I saw that you were going to have a book coming out and I immediately requested it, no questions asked. Reading the blurb I figured it was going to be bloody, brutal at times, harsh, perhaps bittersweet with “morally complex” characters, and told at a slower pace. That didn’t stop me at all. It was everything that I thought it might be as well as having female characters who are smart and courageous. It is a book that will not uplift people and make them smile. There is little that is happy about it for a long time. But it sucked me in and I could not stop reading until I knew “what happened.”

He wakes up, confused as to where he is, and startled at the amazement with which someone – a nurse? – reacts to him speaking. Then a doctor appears, also delighted at his consciousness. He begins to think, groping for answers to their questions. Slowly John Chenneville remembers bits and pieces of his history and learns of the terrible accident that landed him for months in a military hospital in Virginia. He learns the war is over and – from one of the letters his uncle wrote to the doctor – that he must not be told something that could disturb him.

Traveling slowly back home to MIssouri – that land of Civil War lawlessness now under martial law – John continues to relearn the basics of life, regain his balance, and his memories. At home he finally learns the truth. His lovely, laughing sister, her husband, and their year old baby were murdered and their bodies tossed in a spring to be found and identified by those who knew and loved them. But John can’t set out yet to avenge the loss. It takes another year before his body can support his quest. Then he learns that his family are not the only victims of this man, this former soldier who has worn a badge and been protected from answering for his crimes in the chaos that still pervades the area. But now he knows that John is after him and the killer is on the run.

This is another book set during the post-Civil war years of early Reconstruction. Travel is again important and this occurs at the slow pace of horseback. Even a man who mercilessly drives the horses to lameness and death that he buys or steals from others in order to stay ahead of John Chenneville can only go so fast. John has the aliases the killer uses (extracted from an brutal associate in a not so nice manner), the intuition of what environments the killer would seek (after talking to witnesses and near victims), a set of forged discharge papers ($20 but worth every penny) for when he doesn’t want others to know his real name, and the driving determination to kill his sister’s murderer.

Before condemning John, remember that his family sought justice from the law and got nowhere. At one point John encounters someone who knows the killer, might know what the killer has done but who refuses to tell John where the killer is.

Along the way, John meets and interacts with others trying to move forward with their lives. The country is wrecked but John has little empathy for those in Confederate states who built it from the enslaved labor of others. He just wants to keep moving and close in on his prey. The man he seeks is out there, maybe a few days before him or perhaps falling a day or so behind but John is close. Things get more personal when the murderer strikes again, killing another person John met. And though John meets a young woman who knows his quest and with whom John feels he could happily live his life, his goal remains paramount. So anyone looking for a romantic HEA, just put that aside. This is historical fiction.

As the pages left to read dwindled, I got more anxious. Would John find the man he seeks and would John deal out the justice that burns in him to deliver? Another character says “There’s the law and then there’s justice. Sometimes the two overlap.” I didn’t see this wrap up coming, no not at all. And yet it fits and for Reasons I’ll take it. It also makes me wonder who among the many characters in this book (with nods here to Jefferson Kidd and Simon Boudlin) will be seen again in your next one. B

~Jayne

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A body falls from a town house window in Harlem, and it looks just like the newest singer at the Apollo…in this evocative, twisting new novel from the author of Miss Aldridge Regrets.

Harlem, 1936: Lena Aldridge grew up in a cramped corner of London, hearing stories of the bright lights of Broadway. She always imagined that when she finally went to New York City, she’d be there with her father. But now he’s dead, and she’s newly arrived and alone, chasing a dream that has quickly dried up. When Will Goodman—the handsome musician she met on the crossing from England—offers for her to stay with his friends in Harlem, she agrees. She has nowhere else to go, and this will give her a chance to get to know Will better and see if she can find any trace of the family she might have remaining.

Will’s friends welcome her with open arms, but just as Lena discovers the stories her father once told her were missing giant pieces of information, she also starts to realize the man she’s falling too fast and too hard for has secrets of his own. And they might just place a target on her back. Especially when she is drawn to the brightest stage in town.

CW – excessive drinking, smoking, mention of past domestic violence, abortion

There are spoilers for “Miss Aldridge Regrets” in this book.

Dear Ms. Hare,

Last year’s book, “Miss Aldridge Regrets,” had some dangerous and twisty turns along with family secrets. I think people who haven’t read that book could read this one with a bit of effort to come up to speed with what has happened to Lena so far BUT, fair warning, eventually most of the twisty turns would be revealed.

(In the first book) Lena grabbed the chance to escape her less than fantastic life in London. Her beloved father, who came to the UK from NYC) was dead from TB and her bestie Maggie was a new widow of a terrible man. On the passage over to NYC, Lena met a pianist who challenged her to sing one evening with his band. Lena knew that Will had realized that she is mixed race. When the ship docked, much more than Lena realizing that the promised job didn’t exist has occurred. (Now) With no job to support her, Will cajoles Lena into staying an extra two weeks – the length of another crossing and return of the Queen Mary – to explore the city. Lena also wants to try and discover anything about her father that she can.

A married couple, friends of Will’s from childhood, happily agree to put Lena up. It seems that most of Harlem knows Will and are interested if not happy that he’s staying a while. Lena meets Will’s step-sister and it’s soon clear that they have had “issues.” Bel’s got a rocky history and a string of bad decisions behind her but perhaps this time things will be different. That is until someone falls out of a third story window at a party with several possible suspects who might want that victim out of the way.

Despite the morally ambiguous characters in the first book, when I finished this one I realized that I liked the first book a bit better. It felt as if it had more heft and immediate impact on Lena. After all, there was a murder running loose on the ship and she could have become a victim. Here Lena was trying to dig up information on her father – which often took a backseat to what was going on in Will and his friend’s and his sister’s lives. The reader gets bits and pieces of what happened in 1909 via the dual-timeline sections and I had pretty much put together what happened by the time All Was Revealed though the icky twist at the end darkened the story some more. Lena learns that when you go digging into the past, you need to be prepared for what you find.

The identity of the falling victim was hidden for most of the book and there was a plethora of possible people it could be. I was pretty sure it wasn’t one person but as the book progressed, I had a good idea of who it was. But why and how had this person ended up on the pavement three stories down kept me reading. Lena met a lot of people in Harlem during her two week stay. Most had known, or known of, each other since childhood. There were lots of eddies and swirling emotions. Frankly some of it got boring. How many women were going to glare at Lena and make overtures at Will before the end of the book?

Lena was also undecided about whether or not she intended to stay or sail back home. Was her new and still tentative relationship with Will enough to keep her in New York City? I’m sorry to say that I never felt on pins and needles about how this would end. And though a few things were mentioned by Lena about how different NYC was from London, I also didn’t get much of a “fish out of water” feel for most of the book. When the truth about what occurred at the party was uncovered, my reaction was “Huh. That was … unexpected” and the aftermath disturbing. I get the feeling that there will be a third book and I’ll probably eventually want to read it if only to see what happens to Lena next but I’m not sure I’ll be in a rush about it. C

~Jayne

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1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away too. Before the war, Nora Kinney was one of countless housewives and mothers in her comfortable Capitol Hill neighborhood. Now, with her doctor husband stationed in North Africa, Nora feels compelled to do more than tend her victory garden or help with scrap metal drives . . .

At the Boeing B-17 plant, Nora learns to wield a heavy riveting gun amid the deafening noise of the assembly line—a real-life counterpart to “Rosie the Riveter” in the recruitment posters. Yet while the country desperately needs their help, not everyone is happy about “all these women” taking over men’s jobs. Nora worries that she is neglecting her children, especially her withdrawn teenage son. But amid this turmoil, a sinister tragedy occurs: One of Nora’s coworkers is found strangled in her apartment, dressed in an apron, with a lipstick smile smeared on her face.

It’s the beginning of a terrifying pattern, as women war-plant workers like Nora are targeted throughout Seattle and murdered in the same ritualistic manner. And eclipsing Nora’s fear for her safety is her secret, growing conviction that she and the killer are connected—and that the haven that was her home has become her own personal battlefield . . .

CW/TW – racial, lgbtqia+, and ethnic slurs are used by some minor characters. Japanese internment camps are mentioned. One minor character commits suicide. One character is bullied.

Dear Mr. O’Brien,

Looking for something slightly different but the same, I came across “The Enemy at Home”. Yes it’s another World War II book but it’s not about a librarian or a library (though there is one short scene in the Seattle Library). No, it’s a murder/thriller with a killer after the “homefront heroines” working in Seattle. Since heroine Nora works riveting the tail sections of B-17s, I won’t get too upset about the ubiquitous planes on the (otherwise nice) cover.

Nora isn’t a single mother but with her doctor husband over in North Africa doing his part for the war effort, she feels like it. Oldest child Chris worries Nora sometimes as she feels he has few friends at school but Nora’s guiltily glad that a teen who treated Chris badly is out of his life while she worries about another she thinks is a bully. Daughter Jane talks non-stop and somehow manages to evade her KP duty in the kitchen after an exhausted Nora finishes work, gets groceries, walks home (gas coupons only last so long), and cooks dinner.

Writing to her husband Pete, Nora tries to only include upbeat, happy news but in truth she’s barely keeping up with all the plates she’s juggling. Some of the men at the plant make her life hell but the two new friends she’s made say they do that to most of the new women. When her much younger brother unexpectedly arrives, Nora is happy to see him but worried as charming Ray has a habit of causing trouble. As word of the “Rosie Ripper” spreads, women are terrified and carrying everything from knitting needles to ice picks to protect themselves. But Nora has even more on her mind as family issues and a new tenant have her rethinking trusting anyone.

Yes to more WWII novels set in the US homefront. I’ve read a few but I’d love to see more. One thing I need to mention right off the bat is the abundance of exposition at the beginning. Also the fact that sometimes it’s awkwardly shoved right in the middle of the action in a scene. For instance, Nora will be standing beside the tail of a B-17 with a riveting gun in her hand, listening to an asshole yelling at her and then she’ll drift off into thought for a few pages before the action picks up again. Once a lot of background information was covered, there was less of this but it sucked the intensity out of a few scenes at the beginning.

Nora is a hardworking wife and mother trying to keep her family and house going while also doing her part. The extra money certainly helps as now that Pete is in the Army Medical Corp, they don’t have his former (much higher) monthly pay anymore. She, along with most of the other women doing war work, still face misogyny both in the plants and everywhere else. Her family has also been targeted for their former Japanese-American tenants and because her son helps the German Jewish refugee who lives up the street.

It doesn’t take Nora long to connect the murders taking place near her even if the police aren’t saying anything. At the same time, she begins doubting much of what her son is telling her when she catches him sneaking into their house at all hours. Brother Ray manages to get some information out of Chris but tells Nora that he knows Chris is not telling some big secret that is weighing on him. There are lots of men at the plants who resent the fact that women are working there now and the wounded son of one of Nora’s work friends worries his mother by being out all night. Plenty of suspects are there but there are few answers as to what they’re doing. I think all these red herrings are handled well, having damning circumstantial evidence yet also plausible deniability.

The scenes of the murders are frightening. I want to yell at the victims to run, scream, or do something. Don’t just deny what you hear or the fear you feel. And yet how many times do we all do just that? Women especially don’t want to make a fuss. I figured out one twist in the plot but watching everything come together is still chilling as well as satisfying. At one point though, I wondered if part of a scene was an homage to the “don’t go down to the basement” moments in horror movies. I’m still processing the outcome and what certain characters chose to do. Yeah …. it does make sense but it’s a heavy load to bear.

Now for some warnings. Note the CW/TW at the top. There are some LGBTQ+ characters who have to clue Nora in about the things they do daily to fit in and avoid harassment. An African American character is called a slur and Nora gets dirty looks for laughing with him as they work. Nora also does some nice things for some Japanese Americans as well as advises some others to do something that horrified me. So fair warning people. B

~Jayne

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London, April 1943. A little over a year since she married Captain Charles Mayhew and he went away to war, Emmy Lake is now in charge of “Yours Cheerfully,” the hugely popular advice column in Woman’s Friend magazine. Cheered on by her best friend Bunty, Emmy is dedicated to helping readers face the increasing challenges brought about by over three years of war. The postbags are full and Woman’s Friend is thriving.

But Emmy’s world is turned upside down when glamorous socialite, the Honorable Mrs. Cressida Porter, becomes the new publisher of the magazine, and wants to change everything the readers love. Aided by Mrs. Pye, a Paris-obsessed fashion editor with delusions of grandeur, and Small Winston, the grumpiest dog in London, Mrs. Porter fills the pages with expensive clothes and frivolous articles about her friends. Worst of all, she announces that she is cutting the “Yours Cheerfully” column and her vision for the publication’s future seems dire. With the stakes higher than ever, Emmy and her friends must find a way to save the magazine that they love.

Dear Ms. Pearce, 

I was thrilled to get a chance to read this book in advance. Thrilled. Over the moon. Giddy. Alright, I’ll stop now. Chuffed. Happy. Ecstatic. Right, right, stopping now. The previous two books had been such joys to read but I knew that there was still a lot to be written in this series. 

Emmy’s life is going well considering this is heading towards the fourth year of the war. She’s happily married yet has spent so little time with Charles who is off censored somewhere fighting for King and country. No personal news is good news, right? She and bestie Bunty are still living in Bunty’s grandmother’s house in Pimlico and thrilled that Thelma, Emmy’s fellow telephonist at the National Fire station were Emmy works part time, and Thel’s three children will be moving into the flat at the top of the house. 

Lord Overton, the beloved longtime owner of Woman’s Friend magazine has recently passed away but so far, the staff don’t anticipate any change to their mission to help the ordinary women of Britain soldier through the wartime shortages and challenges. Then word arrives that the magazine has been left to Lord Overton’s Society niece – the Hon. Mrs. Cressida Porter.     

While she might at first appear like a dazzling haute couture fairy creature dispensing glamor and fudge, Mrs. Porter, while smiling charmingly, quickly slashes through the bread-and-butter content of Woman’s Friend in a way that would make a velociraptor sit back in awed appreciation before beginning to take notes on her technique. Emmy’s brother-in-law, Mr. Collins – wonderful man and the type of manager anyone would be lucky to work for, is tact and patience personified as he attempts to stanch the blood and soothe the nerves of the staff. But there’s only so much Guy can do to head off Mrs. – “call me Egg” – Porter’s. ruthless plans to turn their humble but needed magazine into a glitzy publication for the wealthy, landed, and titled. As the complaints from their readers rise and ad revenue falls, can Emmy and Guy cook up a plan to save what’s left of Woman’s Friend?  

We’ve been through ups and downs with Emmy, Bunty, and the staff at the newspaper Woman’s Friend. The staff brought it back from the edge – and unwittingly became minor celebrities among the London journalists for doing so – but now they face their greatest challenge. They’ve dispensed helpful information and tips to their readers about how to make do and carry on. The “Friend to Friend” column has been a sounding board for readers’ hopes for the future “once the world is free.” And in “Your’s Cheerfully,” Emmy has given advice to those who often have nowhere else to turn. When Mrs. Porter’s little ideas begin to turn things on their head, the staff is dismayed and then furious. She might think that glum letters from dreary people are “a bit Mis” and that yet another recipe for potatoes or knitting patterns need to be ditched for a write up on a Society wedding or advice to spend 4 guineas for a frock (4 guineas!) but as boring as Mrs. Porter finds business dealings (a bit Mis) it’s soon obvious that the paper is spiraling and headed for disaster. 

Bunty is still a bit raw at the loss of her fiancé Will in a Luftwaffe bombing raid but Emmy susses out that there might be a new male friend in Bunty’s life. Soon Harold is a part of the jolly bunch living in the house and he finds himself a hero to Stan, Marg, and George – Thel’s children. As an engineer (formerly tasked with dealing with unexploded bombs), Harold is a key part of repairing the garden shed for Stan’s hoped for guinea pigs and other assorted creatures. If you need chickens, ask for Scary David or his scary brother but don’t ask too many questions. 

Emmy and Guy watch helplessly as Mrs. Porter’s ideas scuttle the paper until Emmy thinks outside the box after which the Wonderful Monica and her source at the Ministry Do Their Part. What Guy and Emmy don’t count on is a rear attack. I was sweating how this would end. I was also waiting for Something Dire as several people near and dear are fighting in various military theaters plus though the Blitz is over, the Luftwaffe still does bombing raids. What happened had me gutted. I cried. I will freely admit that. For a good section of the last third of the story, tears trickled. Emmy’s oft repeated thought, “You are safe and you are loved” got me through. Then just when I thought all hope of a positive outcome for one issue was lost, it was saved and I cheered.  

If I have one complaint to lodge, it would be that most of these characters are either very good or very bad. Most of the characters are three dimensional and have layers – even Small Winston – but yeah, good or bad. One big Yes from me though for Stan, Marg, and George who are Definitely Not Plot Moppets. Write the next book please quickly as I need to know what will happen next. A  

~Jayne

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