Emma's Review: The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Jersey, 1943. Once a warm and neighbourly community, now German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule on the people of the island.

Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, is ordered to destroy books which threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, postwoman Bea Rose, she wants to fight back. So she forms the wartime book club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading.

But as the occupation drags on, the women's quiet acts of bravery become more perilous - and more important - than ever before. And, when tensions turn to violence, they are forced to face the true, terrible cost of resistance . . .

Book Links: Kindle or Hardcover

Emma's Review: The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

Reviewed by Kate Thompson

London, 1944.

Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a secret community thrives: with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café and a theatre offering shelter, solace and escape from the bombs that fall above.

Along with her glamorous best friend and library assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women's determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it seems it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive.

, Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

It's my 50th Birthday so let's celebrate with books

They say age is just a number and it's certainly a mantra I believe in the older I have become. But for me birthdays are also bittersweet as they are a reminder that my mum is no longer around as she died suddenly 3 days before my 29th birthday. And now that I've reached the big 5-0 milestone, it's also a reminder as to how young my mum was as I've now only got 2 more birthdays to go until I'll be the age she was when she died.

Sadly with the way life has been for us all in the last 10 months, birthdays, weddings and any other form of celebrations have been rather pared back and mainly celebrated with those in our households or social bubbles so we've certainly got a lot of catching up to do when it is safe to meet up again. Personally I wouldn't have liked a big party or anything but would have liked to have been able to arrange to go out with friends for afternoon tea, instead I'll be celebrating my birthday home alone although will be catching up with friends online. 

But not only is it a special day for me, but it's also a big new books day in the publishing world as there are a LOT of new books out today. Below are just a small selection of some of the books that have caught my eye and made it onto my wishlist. Which ones will you be buying?

Blogiversary Giveaway: Take your pick from a selection of Women's Fiction Books

Today it's time for the other TBR giveaway, the chance for the winner to select one of the books currently languishing in my review piles that realistically I'm unlikely to read anytime soon. If you missed Monday's giveaway post explaining what the TBR giveaways are about, you can read it here.

The broad genre I'm using today is Women's Fiction as I have a mixture of books that cover Contemporary fiction, Romantic Comedy, Romance or Saga and I think in the selection of books below these are widely covered. As mentioned previously these are either duplicate copies where I already have a proof copy or eBook to review or have been received out of the blue and I'm unlikely to be reading for review in the near future.

Emma's Review: Secrets of the Homefront Girls by Kate Thompson

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Stratford, 1939.

Britain may be at war, but on the home front keeping up morale and keeping up appearances go hand in hand. For the young women working on the lipstick production line at Yardley's cosmetics factory, it's business as usual.

Headstrong Renee Gunn is the queen of the lipstick belt - although her cheeky attitude means she's often in trouble. When Esther, an Austrian refugee, arrives at Yardley's, it's Renee who takes her under her wing and teaches her to be a true cockney.

But outside of the factory, things are more complicated. Lily, Renee's older sister, has suddenly returned home after six years away, and is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile Esther is finding life in England more difficult than expected, and it's not long before Renee finds herself in trouble, with nowhere to turn.

In the face of the Blitz, the Yardley girls are bound together by friendship and loyalty - but could the secrets they are hiding be the biggest danger of all?

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Emma's Review: The Allotment Girls by Kate Thompson

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

During the Second World War, life in the iconic Bryant & May match factory is grimy and tough. Annie, Rose, Pearl and Millie carry on making matches for the British Army, with bombs raining down around them.

Inspired by the Dig for Victory campaign, Annie persuades the owners to start Bryant & May allotment in the factory grounds. With plenty of sweat and toil, the girls eventually carve out a corner of the yard into a green plot full of life and colour.

In the darkest of times, the girls find their allotment a tranquil, happy escape. Using pierced dustbin lids to sieve through the shrapnel and debris, they bring about a powerful change, not just in the factory, but their own lives.

As the war rages on, the garden becomes a place of community, friendship – and deceit. As the garden thrives and grows, so do the girls' secrets . . .

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Extract from The Wedding Girls by Kate Thompson

Today I'm delighted to be able to share with you an extract of Chapter One from Kate Thompson's latest book The Wedding Girls which is published today.

If a wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life, then the story starts with the dress.

It's 1936 and the streets of London's East End are grimy and brutal, but in one corner of Bethnal Green it is forever Hollywood . . .

Herbie Taylor's photography studio is nestled in the heart of bustling Green Street. Tomboy Stella and troubled Winnie work in Herbie's studio; their best friend and hopeless romantic Kitty works next door as an apprentice dressmaker. All life passes through the studio, wishing to capture that perfect moment in time.

Kitty works tirelessly to create magical bridal gowns, but with each stitch she wonders if she'll ever get a chance to wear a white dress. Stella and Winnie sprinkle a dusting of Hollywood glamour over happy newly-weds, but secretly dream of escaping the East End . . .
Community is strong on Green Street, but can it stand the ultimate test? As clouds of war brew on the horizon, danger looms over the East End. Will the Wedding Girls find their happy ever afters, before it's too late?

One

14th February 1936

Valentine’s Day

From out of the reddish gloom of the darkroom emerged a spellbinding image. Stella held her breath, as she always did, for there was a curious alchemy to this moment, as if her breath alone might disturb this delicate part of the process.    
     The surface of the clear liquid rippled as Herbie gently lifted the print from the processing tank with a pair of tongs.  
     ‘Here’s our bonny bride,’ the photographer smiled, relieved, as he lifted the image up and placed it in the drying cabinet, as proudly as if he were a physician who had just helped to deliver an infant into the world.  
     ‘Say, Herbie! She’s a pocketbook Venus!’ Stella breathed, transfixed, as she gazed at the image. Stella must have looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs of brides over the years, but there was something captivating about this one. She had known eighteen-year-old milliner Doris Simpson was a beauty from the moment she and her beau had first stepped into the photographic studio all those months ago, but seeing her now, smiling adoringly up at the face of her new husband, she was the very image of radiance.  
     Stella had never seen such spirit etched on the face of a new bride. It had been a wild and blustery day yesterday when Stella and Herbie had stood shivering on the steps outside Christ Church on the Isle of Dogs, to photograph the newlyweds. The wind whipping off the docks had sent the bride’s veil billowing around her face as a shower of green leaves spiralled down from the trees above and cascaded over the couple like confetti.  
     It had been a simple wedding, the bride clutching a tiny bouquet of red carnations and maidenhair fern, her green eyes sparkling under a headdress of orange blossom, attended by two skittish bridesmaids in apricot satin. There had only been time for a few photographs on the church steps, none of the usual elaborate family formations Herbie would have preferred, before the wedding party retired to the bride’s mother’s for a buffet and a knees-up. Stella knew the married couple didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together and had opted for the most basic wedding photography album their slender means would permit.  
     Doris’s new husband was whispering something in her ear, his hand snaked around her twenty-two-inch waist drawing her close, and her head was thrown back in laughter. Hope and love were transformative. Stella knew that this day was the birth of their future life together.  
     ‘Gladdens your heart, don’t it?’ she grinned, unable to tear her eyes from the picture. ‘I hope they choose to frame this one.’  
     ‘I dare say they will,’ sighed Herbie. ‘You’d think a bride might want . . .’ His voice trailed off, frustrated, as he stroked the ends of his small neat moustache in the hope it might conjure up the right words.    ‘
     . . . more formal pictorialism in a studio. A bride that beautiful – just think, Stella. I could have made her look like Ginger Rogers with the right lighting . . .’ 

Guest Book Review: Kate Thompson - Secrets of the Singer Girls

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

1942. Sixteen-year-old Poppy Percival turns up at the gates of Trout's clothing factory in Bethnal Green with no idea what her new life might have in store. There to start work as a seamstress and struggling to get to grips with the noise, dirt and devastation of East London, Poppy can't help but miss the quiet countryside of home. But Poppy harbours a dark secret - one that wrenched her away from all she knew and from which she is still suffering . . . 

And Poppy's not the only one with a secret. Each of her new friends at the factory is hiding something painful. Vera Shadwell, the forelady, has had a hard life with scars both visible and concealed; her sister Daisy has romantic notions that could get her in trouble; and Sal Fowler, a hardworking mother who worries about her two evacuated boys for good reason. Bound by ties of friendship, loyalty and family, the devastating events of the war will throw each of their lives into turmoil but also bring these women closer to each other than they could ever have imagined.

Amazon links: Kindle or Paperback