Kate Lord Brown – The Beauty Chorus
Series or stand alone: stand alone
Genre: fiction, historical, romance, adventure, World War Two

Reason for reading: I have a passing interest in women’s roles in war after my own grandmother’s involvement in the Rolls Royce factory in Glasgow. The pay was terrible and the skilled women earned less than unskilled men. Being a hardy adopted Glaswegian, my grandmother joined the women’s strike in 1943 for fair pay. They were semi-successful with their endeavour. After being hit with rotten eggs and the like, they returned to work at the plant where wages were now calculated by the machinery and work you were involved with. As far as I know, this agreement was irrespective of the sex of the worker so a woman would earn the same as a man in the same role. Interestingly, the strike was supported by most of the men still working in the factory.

And that is possibly far more than you ever wanted to read about my family history.

Cover: I kind of like it. The woman is looking a bit on the glamorous side but my granny always said that you powdered your nose and put on your lipstick no matter what situation you were in.

Blurb: New Year's Eve, 1940: Evie Chase, the beautiful debutante daughter of a rich and adoring RAF commander, listens wistfully to the swing music drifting out from the ballroom, unable to join in the fun. With bombs falling nightly in London, she is determined that the coming year will bring a lot more than dances, picnics and tennis matches. She is determined to make a difference to the war effort.

2nd January, 1941: Evie curses her fashionable heels as they skid on the frozen ground of her local airfield. She is here to join the ATA, the civilian pilots who ferry Tiger Moths and Spitfires to bases across war-torn Britain. Two other women wait nervously to join up: Stella Grainger, a forlorn young mother who has returned from Singapore without her baby boy and Megan Jones, an idealistic teenager who has never left her Welsh village.

Billeted together in a tiny cottage in a sleepy country village, Evie, Stella and Megan must learn to live and work together. Brave, beautiful and fiercely independent, these women soon move beyond their different backgrounds as they find romance, confront loss, and forge friendships that will last a lifetime.

Verdict: good

( Thoughts )