Curious about life in the English countryside during World War II? Author Helen Bryan paints a vivid picture of this era in her novel War Brides. The novel follows the stories of five different young women--a debutante from the southern U.S., a vicar's daughter, a Jewish refugee, an evacuee from London's slums, and a privileged daughter of an Admiral in the British Navy. They all weather the war in rural Crowmarsh Priors.
The author did a great job of showing the hardships endured by the English people. I came away with a new appreciation for their perseverance, and I couldn't help but wonder how we'd react to a similar situation today.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Book Length: 497 Pages
Amazon Link: War Brides
Author Website: Helen Bryan's Amazon Author Page
First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros - I chose the opening to Chapter 1, rather than the Prologue for my post:
Crowmarsh Priors, Boxing Day, 1937
At twenty-two, Alice Osbourne was the sort of girl people called a "brick," sensible and responsible, though they were inclined to add that she was pretty when she smiled. She was tall like her father, the late vicar of Crowmarsh Priors. Her features, brown hair, and air of bookish distraction were also his.
Teaser Tuesday (from 44% on my Kindle):
There had been no air raid warning, only the drone of an approaching airplane to alert them just as the village children went out to play after lunch on Saturday when a lone German Heinkel 111 suddenly roared low over Crowmarsh Priors. By the time anxious mothers had dropped the washing-up and rushed out in their aprons to drag their children to safety, the bomber was over the downs, twisting and rolling across the sky to escape the RAF Hurricanes now in pursuit.
Partial Synopsis from Amazon:
With war threatening to spread from Europe to England, the sleepy village of Crowmarsh Priors settles into a new sort of normal: Evacuees from London are billeted in local homes. Nightly air raids become grimly mundane. The tightening vice of rationing curtails every comfort. Men leave to fight and die. And five women forge an unlikely bond of friendship that will change their lives forever.
As the war and its relentless hardships intensify around them, the same struggles that threaten to rip apart their lives also bring the five closer together. They draw strength from one another to defeat formidable enemies—hunger, falling bombs, the looming threat of a Nazi invasion, and a traitor in their midst—and find remarkable strength within themselves to help their friends. Theirs is a war-forged loyalty that will outlast the fiercest battle and endure years and distance.
When four of the women return to Crowmarsh Priors for a VE Day celebration fifty years later, television cameras focus on the heartwarming story of these old women as war brides of a bygone age, but miss the more newsworthy angle. The women’s mission is not to commemorate or remember—they’ve returned to settle a score and avenge one of their own.
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