Synopsis – War changes everything… Emily has always lived a life of privilege. That is until the drums of World War One came beating. Her family may be dramatically affected but it also offers her the freedom that she craves. Away from the tight control of her mother she grabs every opportunity that the war is giving to women like her, including love.
Working as a land girl Emily finds a new lease of life but when the war is over, and life returns to normal, she has to learn what to give up and what she must fight for.
Will life ever be the same again?
My thoughts – I really enjoyed this book, probably more than I expected I would. I’m not a huge historical fiction reader, as so many stories are set in a world so foreign and unimaginable for me that I struggle to get into the, and the writing styles are so different. However, this one, was so different. It had a really good world building, and the descriptions were so real. With every word I read I was able to build up this picture of what was happening so clearly.
I really connected with the characters. I felt for Emily while reading the book, she had to endure so many struggles, but this was the reality for so many young women during WW1. I can’t comment too much upon historical accuracy, as I’m no expert in this area of history, but it felt very real and well researched when I was reading it.
I felt that the character building was really good too. There wasn’t much telling us about their personalities, but you built up this picture from the dialogues and how they acted around each other. A technique teachers love to talk about – show me, don’t tell me. There was a lot of characters in the book, and I know that it was necessary and is real life, but at times it was a little confusing as there were so many of them.
They went through so much heartache, and at times I felt that this pain was brushed off a little at times, maybe this was because it wasn’t a continuous flow of time, and instead jumped around going from different months, but this did work at times.
I enjoyed reading the letters from one of the characters to Emily, but I would have liked to have seen Emily’s replies to these letters, as this would have formed a better dialogue between the two characters,and would have helped up to understand Emily better and get tot familiarise ourselves wit their relationship.
I’m considering going looking for other books Allie has written and reading those as well, as this was such a beautifully written book, that had a good flow to it and an even better story line.
About the author:
Allie lives in Kent with her family and two tortoises. When she’s not writing for business or penning her women’s historical fiction, Allie enjoys swimming and yoga. She has an MA in Professional Writing from Falmouth University and The Lido Girls is her debut novel. She is currently working on a second interwar years novel, which is due for publication in the summer of 2018.
Rebecca Reads 