This is Book 5 in the Tobacco Girls series, but can be read as a standalone. This was the first one I have read, but it was easy to understand what was going on. I would like to read them all from the first one though, to discover more about what the characters have been through previously.
This book begins in May 1944 from Maisie’s point of view. Maisie works at the W. D. & H. O. Wills tobacco factory in Bristol. She had started working there after leaving school and loves the friendships she has made there. She doesn’t have much family, so the girls feel like sisters to her.
Carole is Maisie’s lodger. She’s 18 and a single mum to baby Paula (3 months) who she is considering having adopted. Maisie thinks this is a bad idea and tries to persuade Carole to keep the baby.
Her friends Phyllis and Bridget have moved away – Bridget married an American and is training to be a nurse in London. Phyllis is in Malta with her Australian boyfriend Mick, who she plans to marry. We follow their stories too. All their partners are affected by the War. Maisie’s boyfriend Sid is incarcerated in a Japanese POW camp, but they write letters to each other.
I love these kinds of novels where we see how women coped in England during World War II. Obviously they are fictionalised, but you can tell how well-researched they are and everything feels very realistic. These books also show how much important work women did at home, often doing what had previously been thought of as men’s work. It also illustrates how women were treated in such a poor way if they had children out of wedlock and – in Bridget’s case – how only unmarried women could train to be nurses!
It’s an easy read, nice short chapters and a storyline that you are interested in right away. I loved Maisie from the first page and she’s a brilliant character, definitely my favourite. I also felt sorry for Carole. I liked how you could follow each woman’s story and they all had plenty going on in their lives, complicated by the background of the War and all it meant for each one.
BLURB
Marriage and Mayhem for the Tobacco Girls
War is fleeting, but true love last forever…
May 1944
Hope and excitement is in the air when news breaks of the allied forces landing in Normandy. D Day has arrived. However, the day-to-day struggles for the Tobacco Girls continue.
Carole Thomas wants her old life back. She is burdened with the guilt of being a young single mother and considers having baby Paula adopted, but Maisie Miles will do anything to stop her.
Phyllis Mason having found the love of her life is getting married in Malta to Mick Fairbrother, but will the dangerous legacies of war plague her happy day?
Bridget O’Neill finds herself posted to one of the hospitals receiving the injured from the D-Day landing beaches. Her most fervent hope is that her husband, Lyndon, does not become one of them.
Peace is on the horizon, but will their wishes and dreams win through and bring them a happy ever after?
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Author Bio –
Lizzie Lane is the author of over 50 books, a number of which have been bestsellers. She was born and bred in Bristol where many of her family worked in the cigarette and cigar factories. This has inspired her saga series for Boldwood The Tobacco Girls.
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