Dear Miss Lake by AJ Pearce

August 9, 2025

Dear Miss Lake by AJ Pearce

Emmy Lake and the other staff at Woman's Friend are still hard at work. But in the summer of 1944, Britain has been at war for five long years. While victory is coming, especially since the Americans joined the fight, between the nightly bombings raids and the ever tightening rationing, everyone on the home front is exhausted from the war. It's a challenge for the magazine staff to remain upbeat and positive while faced with constant worry about their own loved ones.

Fourth and final book in the Emmy Lake series. Pleasant historical fiction that covers life in Britain during the last year of World War II. I would recommend reading the previous books in the series as there are frequent references to events and characters from earlier books. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review. 

A POW camp in Stuttgart, Germany

Canary Girls by Jennifer Chiaverini

September 8, 2023

Canary Girls by Jennifer Chiaverini

At the outset of World War I, three women from different backgrounds all sign up for war work at a munitions plant just outside London. Two are assigned to shell assembly while the third carves out a place in administration as welfare supervisor. Shell assembly involves handling TNT which turns the women's skin yellow and their hair orange (hence the name canary girls). To keep up morale, the munitionettes form a football (soccer) team and compete against teams from other plants.

This has been described as Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own, and I think that's a fair description. It's a look at the home front during World War I: doing war work, coping with rationing, trying to keep up morale while worrying about loved one serving at the front. The story was slow moving. I'm not really into sports (especially not soccer), so I skimmed over the parts of soccer matches and plays. Also, I think I could assemble an artillery shell from the repeated descriptions of the work. I think one of the reasons that I didn't love this more is that I'm tired of World War I and World War II fiction. Recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction or fiction about women's lives.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Two canary girls