The Boat Girls
It is 1943, and three very different girls are longing to do their bit for the war effort.
Frances – her life of seeming privilege has been a lonely one. Brave and strong, stifled by her traditional upbringing, she falls for a most unsuitable man
Prudence – timid and conventional, her horizons have never strayed beyond her job as a bank clerk in Croydon until the war brings her new experiences
Rosalind – a beautiful, flame-haired actress who catches the eye of Frances’s stuffy elder brother, the heir to an ancestral mansion.
The three become friends when they join the band of women working the canal boats, delivering goods and doing a man’s job while the men are away fighting. A tough, unglamorous task – but one which brings them all unexpected rewards.
So far this book has hooked me right from the start! I’d say my favorite character right now would be Prudence, a girl who struggles to take care of her father who was “shell-shocked” after coming home from the war (most likely WW1). Reading about how devastating PTSD could be before there was even a real word for it was pretty astonishing. The fact that this illness has existed for so many years yet is just being realized and supported is sad. And this book emphasizes how the horror of someone losing a piece of themselves at war or because of some other traumatic event can be, both for the person and their loved ones.
The romance has started to pick up, but I am definitely focusing more on the friendships between the girls than their relationships with any of the boys that they run into.
These books seem to weave real stories in with fiction, and I could definitely see these characters existing in the real world during their times. I flew through the first few chapters and can’t wait to keep reading!
Our Yanks
I STILL REMEMBER THE YANKS, ALMOST MORE THAN I DO THE WAR’ A Suffolk woman.
It was August 1943 – and the inhabitants of King’s Thorpe had lived with the idea of invasion for some time – but by the Germans, not the Americans. The village had never seen anything like them before – certainly they were different with their wealth, their glamour, and their louche but romantic uniforms. Some of the older villagers, like the Brigadier, resented them on sight, others welcomed them with weak tea and fish paste sandwiches. But in some lives they were to make a long-lasting and emotional impact – most especially young Sally Barnet from the bakery, Agnes Dawe, the Rector’s daughter, and newly-widowed Lady Beauchamp from the Manor.
I have to say, I never thought it would be a scary thing for Americans to be entering British towns during WWII. We were on the same side and were supposed to be coming to “save” them, from what I had learned in history class. But this book tells a different story. A story of a town full of people who were worried about foreigners coming into their town and taking advantage of them. Even if they were allies, they were still not sure if they would be safe as rural village folks and these strong American soldiers from all over their large country. The Americans have to prove themselves to be trustworthy, but some of them might not be fully trustworthy.
This was another book that I flew through the beginning of, and I can’t wait to finish it!
About The Author
Margaret Mayhew was born in London and her earliest childhood memories were of the London Blitz. She began writing in her mid-thirties and had her first novel published in 1976. She is married to American aviation author, Philip Kaplan, and lives in Gloucestershire.
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