Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Carrie Anderson’s business selling books at her local train station is thriving and, with her beloved Mike returned from war, everything feels as though it is falling into place. That is, until Mike is sent to Washington as a liaison between Britain and America.
When her twin brother, Johnnie, a fighter pilot, is injured, and her bookstall falls on hard times, Carrie misses the sage advice and comfort of Mike more than ever.
Bolstered by her supportive station community, can Carrie battle through this challenging new chapter and reach the happy ending she deserves?
Many thanks to Penguin Random House for my copy A New Chapter at the Little Penguin Bookshop to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
A New Chapter at the Little Penguin Bookshop is the second book in Joanna Toye’s Little Penguin Bookshop series. It’s a World War Two saga set in and around the railway station at Brockington Junction where a supportive community has sprung up at a time when community spirit is needed the most. I found myself quickly and easily settling back into the setting and the characters as I was familiar with them from book one. But for those that are new to the series, this is easily read as a standalone story and you will be well able to figure out what occurred in the previous book as lots of background information is provided without giving away too much as to what has already occurred. I found this to be a nice, easy, relaxing read and a quick one also as I read it in two sittings.
It’s late January 1941 and Carrie continues to run her little bookstall at the railway station. Thanks to financial backing from her Uncle Charlie her dream to have a bookshop of sorts has come to fruition. Although her long term goal would be run to a large bookshop of her own. But war has put paid to that for the moment and all she can do is keep serving her loyal costumers and the travellers, commuters and troops that pass through the station. She loves her little stall that sells all kinds of newspapers, books and book related items most notably the Penguin classics that so many adore. Carrie is providing a service that is vital to morale.Books are a source of comfort, pleasure and escape and always will be for so many.
Carrie is a fabulous character, hardworking, independent, resilient, cheerful and full of fighting spirit. Although she is not without her faults and she does have a softer and more delicate side too. Things are going well for her on the work front and the romance front too with her relationship with Mike going from strength to strength. He is slowly recuperating from his shoulder injury which has afforded him leave from the army which Carrie is only too thrilled about as she gets to spend lots of time with him which wouldn’t have been the norm at the time for those who had a partner who had enlisted. Mike proposes to Carrie and she readily accepts and is excited to start planning her wedding but then Mike is called away to America to work with the delegation sent there to try and encourage America to join the war and put paid to the evil of Hitler once and for all. I understand that for Carrie this was awful timing and that she would miss Mike very much but to be honest I thought she went a bit overboard because really Mike was going to be safe in America. There was no danger that he would be killed fighting in action like the worry she had experienced the previous year and after all the wedding could be delayed.
Really Carrie had it lucky compared to other girls who had loved ones away fighting and Ruby who works in the railway station café with Bette was proof of this. When Carrie sees something thanks to Gus an American journalist I thought she totally over reacted and wasn’t rational at all in her thinking and as much as I loved her as a character I found myself thinking oh do grow up a bit and try and seek a logical answer and explanation before totally jumping the gun like she did. That’s one thing about her she reaches conclusions too quickly and should have had more trust and faith in her relationship. As mentioned in the blurb there are tough times ahead for her little stall but I loved how she rallied the troops so to speak in her hour of need and it received a touching and heart-warming conclusion that didn’t seem too much rather it brought a smile to your face.
Ruby is young and innocent but works hard at the café with Bette. I think she was gullible in some ways and very much easily lead. She longs for Eric, Bette’s son, to return home from the prisoner of war camp in Poland and some of the things she said made me realise she thought that he was working for money there when he was imprisoned. The reality couldn’t have been further from the truth and it shocks me that it took so long for the true nature of the camps to come to the fore and most only once liberation of the camps occurred. Ruby had her own significant storyline where her gullible nature and her vulnerability were shown. I guessed more or less straight away what was going on and was desperately hoping that she would wake up and see the light before it was too late.
Penny is the most intriguing character and thanks to book one we now know about her background and how she came to work as a porter at the station. I won’t give anything away regarding this but suffice to say she is one person I want to learn lots more about and I feel there is lots of room for further development for her character. She is fiercely independent and in my eyes a woman ahead of her time in terms of social norms and expectations. She is someone that never does anything that she doesn’t want to do. She is a woman of her own heart and mind and I loved the way she stood up to the obnoxious station master who viewed women with such disdain. Penny doesn’t often show her emotions but she does so when it comes to Carrie’s twin brother Johnnie who is an R.A.F pilot. He regular puts himself in the firing line in the skies and is a thrill seeker but a bit too much so. He is working himself to the bone and it is affecting him mentally and in the end physically. Can Penny and Carrie get through to him before it’s too late? The Penny/Johnnie storyline was lovely and I was hoping they would get the happy ending that they so richly deserved. But a few home truths needed to come out in the open first.
There is a gentle relaxed pacing throughout the book. Although at a bit too relaxed times. I did feel a little it more needed to happen as I found the first half of the book quite slow even though I was flying through the chapters. By slow I mean by anything significant occurring. The second half was much stronger and there were two serious events that occurred that added a bit of oomph to the story. They were meaty and gave the reader something to get stuck into and to worry over as did the characters. I would have loved for this events to have occurred earlier on in the book which would have allowed for extended development and exploration. Occurring in the later half of the book meant I felt that they were in my mind slightly rushed and were over and resolved despite the potential for the reader to really think about things. I understand perhaps due to the nature of this genre that there is a lot to cover and the extent of the war was so expansive but it’s just my own personal opinion that a little more fleshing out was needed or perhaps more significant events could have occurred in the first half apart from the one that did regarding Johnnie.
All in all I did really enjoy the story apart from the minor grievance I had as mentioned up above. This was a comforting and familiar read that had me really liking and respecting the characters for what they were going through and how they handled everything that was thrown at them. I thought the ending was perfect but definitely in my eyes there is potential for one if not two more books in the series. Firstly, the war is far from reaching its conclusion so there is lots to explore in that regard and also I feel Penny has more to share and there is certainly an unresolved aspect to her personal story. Now maybe the author wants things left the way they are currently with Penny. But I’d love a bit of resolution or conflict connecting back to her family. There is also the potential to introduce new characters and I want to know what comes next for Carrie and Mike. Fans of the wartime saga genre will enjoy this book and it reminds me of the Ellie Dean’s Cliffehaven series. An enjoyable, heart-warming and emotional read with engaging characters, a sense of optimism and strong community spirit. Fingers crossed I hear more from them all in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment