Thoughts

I've been reading through this Women at War series, having picked up Lily's War quite randomly and then quickly racing through Bridget and Maggie's stories as well. I've mentioned before that I've loved how these books highlight areas of women's participation in the war effort that I wasn't aware of. The Land Army I did know about, but I was sure there would be something surprising to learn within.

There were two main things that turned out not to be a surprise, but were definitely hammered home - firstly, just how hard work it was. Not enough bodies on the farm trying to complete way too much work, and a whole nation reliant on the produce to keep them going. I can't imagine the pressure and stress of that - my limited experience of gardening is that it never goes to plan, so to have hungry mouths relying on you must have been very difficult.

The second thing was the prejudice these women faced. The men already on the farm were so judgemental about what women could possibly add to the situation. It's always good to be reminded of how far we've come, even if there's still plenty of prejudice out there for women in farming. Harriet Cowan from Clarkson's Farm is one of those doing great work in this area.

This book does contain a couple of sexual assault storylines, alongside PTSD symptoms and repression. It's worth knowing that before you pick it up, but it is all handled delicately and respectfully.

The whole thing is neatly written and easy to digest, even if the storylines can be difficult. It's a love-letter to the land, to the hope during a crisis that is clung on to and shattered at regular intervals, to the potential for love across a great divide... our main character Hannah has only gone and fallen for a German POW:

Without a war, it could have been a very promising outing with a man who set her heart thumping, but the silence between them was overshadowed by a great big swastika… She was trapped in August 1943, and there was no way out.

You don't need to have read any other books in the series to pick this up, in fact I think I've been reading these out of order, but there are sometimes references to other books' characters and plot lines which gives you a nice warm feeling when you'd already done the homework.

I enjoyed reading this, you so quickly can picture the characters and settings. The only reason this isn't a full 5 out of 5 is that the ending arrives very abruptly, and the real wrap up to the whole situation we've been reading about is in an epilogue. It could have done with more space. However, I think there's only one more in the series by Shirley Mann that I haven't read, so I'll be tracking that one down as soon as I can.

Rating: 4 / 5