Cliffehaven, 1945
The war in Europe is over, but for Peggy Reilly and the residents of Beach View Boarding House the effects of the conflict are still far-reaching.
Cockney evacuee, Ivy, and her sweetheart, Andy, are saving to get married and fulfil their dream of returning to the East End. But when tragedy strikes, Ivy is faced with a life-changing dilemma that only she can resolve.
Rita also faces an impossible choice when her sweetheart Peter proposes and asks her to live with him in Australia – just as her widowed father returns from the fighting in Europe.
Meanwhile Peggy must say goodbye to several of her evacuee chicks whilst she awaits the return of her family from Somerset and the news that her husband, Jim, can finally come home.
It’s a dream she’s held onto for six long years, but fate has one more twist in store.
Many thanks to Arrow publishing for my copy of With Hope and Love and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
With Hope and Love is the seventeenth book in the Cliffehaven series by Ellie Dean. It really feels like we are making our way towards the conclusion of what has been a brilliant war time family saga series as now the war has been declared over and Peggy's chicks are starting to fly the nest. I only discovered this series four or five books ago so it is proof that you can pick up any of these books and slot right into the overall story. Saying that I don't think With Hope and Love would be the best book to start with as overall it really is a book where loose ends are begun to be tied up and there is nothing dramatically new as there had been in the previous books I had read. To get a real feel for the series go back a few books or even to the start if you so wish.
Saying that I did enjoy the story overall as it sees lots of little plots which I presume had begun in book one and the books that followed on have some resolution and characters who had so desperately missed their loved ones got some definitive answers be they positive or negative. There are lots and lots of characters to keep track of, and to remember how people are connected, but at the back of the book there are several pages which give a brief synopsis and background to several of the main characters. This is invaluable as you can flip back and forth to get information or just to reaffirm things regarding certain characters in your mind.
No doubt about it the stand out character, the one whom everyone turns to in a crisis and the person who really has held the whole show together over the last six years of war, is Peggy. She is such a brilliantly written character and one you root for all the way. Having no tourists at her guesthouse in the seaside town of Cliffehaven since the outbreak of war she opened her doors to those in need of a home. Evacuees, family members or women simply needing a place to stay whilst they engage in war work or at the nearby aerodrome. Women who then go on to feel like family and become known as Peggy's chicks. Peggy is a mother figure to everybody and is always there to offer advice or to just to listen to whatever troubles or issues that crop up.
In this book we get to see inside the real Peggy and there is a vulnerability shown to her. That all the worries and burdens she has shouldered for so long are starting to come to the surface. She should be so excited and happy that the long years of war have come to an end but yet she can't fully embrace this new found peace that everyone else seems so readily and willingly able to grasp. That's simply because the future of her immediate family is not yet secure and those she has longed to see arrive home on her doorstep have yet to do so.
Peggy's husband Jim is still away fighting in the jungles of Burma as the war in the East is not yet over. I really understood how Peggy was feeling, on one hand she was delighted to see so many reunions at home and that the stories of her chicks were starting to see a resolution. Marriages that people have longed for start to happen and those imprisoned abroad begin to arrive home. But on the other hand the person she longs to see with every fibre of her being remains very much far away and really all she wants to do is hold Jim in her arms. I love how Ellie Dean paints such a realistic picture of war and that the fact it was over in Europe did not mean that everything went back to normal overnight. So many changes had happened and people had to adapt to those and to continue to make the best of what they had.
Throughout this book Peggy was filled with even more worry and anguish as I don't think she truly believes that Jim will make it home until she sees him standing on the doorstep of Beach View House. Again we had chapters dotted throughout told from Jim's viewpoint and I loved this as it took us away from Cliffehaven and showed just what a tough time Jim was continuing to experience. We can tell he is fed up and at the end of his tether and just desperate to get back home into the warm embrace of his family. But when will this become a reality instead of just a dream or will it ever happen at all? We are left guessing throughout and this keeps the reader engaged and interested in the story.
After six years of hardship, deprivation, tragedy, devastation, loss and grief the country has altered dramatically but the hope, courage and positive spirit still exists in Cliffehaven. We get an insight into how the town is trying to get back on its feet and also as to how the various girls Rita, Ruby, April, Kitty, Charlotte,Fran and Ivy and many more are finally seeing their dreams come true. There are too many characters to mention and too many sub-plots surrounding them but suffice to say I was pleased with how things worked out for women I had come to call friends over the course of the books I have read in this series. They had plenty of challenging decisions to grapple with and it was interesting to see how these choices would affect the rest of their lives.
There were numerous characters whom we had never actually got to meet in previous books because they had been anyway and all we ever got were mentions of them. Yes, I know they would have featured in the earlier books in the series but I have not had the opportunity to go back and read these so I was delighted to see Cissy, Peggy's daughter, return to the family fold. She was so different to what I thought she was going to be and at times I found it difficult to comprehend that she was Peggy's daughter like wise with Anne. Anne had been away in the country with her young family and two brothers for the duration of the war and now was the time to come home but she was reluctant to do so. Both Anne and Cissy surprised me with their actions. At times I wondered did they have the same values and beliefs as their mother did? Surely they knew that Peggy wanted everyone back under one roof or nearby in Cliffehaven. But as the story progresses we see that both Cissy and Anne are battling with their own circumstances and that time, patience, forgiveness and talking things through may well be the only way to grasp the point they have been striving to reach.
Overall this was another enjoyable read in the series but I do feel stretching it out beyond the next book might just be pushing things a little too far. It feels as if the time is right to being this series to a close when the next book is published. All the characters have come to feel like family and you desperately hope that everyone will get the good ending they deserve but like with real life this cannot always be the case. The themes and messages conveyed throughout the book are done so very well and Ellie Dean has highlighted successfully how Peggy and her chicks have navigated the ups and downs of the war.She has shown that for Peggy and many others that family are life's blood and the reason to keep going even in the darkest of times.Can she keep this sentiment close to her heart as she waits for her beloved to safely return home? Only time will tell and I look forward to the next book Homecoming which will be published in January 2020.
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