Christmas with the East End Girls
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley October 4, 2026
Author Jean Fullarton
Distributor: Amazon
ISBN: 978-1805500872
Publisher: Bookouture
Release Date: 2 October 2026
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Christmas is almost here again and the girls of the 906 Balloon Command at East End docks are still wrestling with their barrage balloon Bessie, the weather is positively freezing, and the War is dragging endlessly onward.
Lady Georgina Hermoine Matilda St John-Smythe, or George to her friends, is doing what she does best when off duty, sipping a cocktail in a bar in Pall Mall. Lost in reflection she does not notice a tall Army Officer standing beside her. He orders a single Malt whisky, gone in an instant, he orders a double. They begin to talk; an instant attraction forms, a clinch leads to the inevitable question which, to her surprise, George refutes.
The next time she meets the handsome Officer he is the new Vicar, Reverend Guy Moncrieff, at St Paul’s Church, the local Church for the girls of the Balloon Command.
Christmas with the East End Girls is Georgie’s story; the prickly, charming, loveable woman who is carrying a secret, grieving a broken heart, is frustrated by her mother’s constant nagging to marry some ‘wealthy’ member of the Peerage at the least and simply wants to be left alone to get on with her life; her way.
She finds discovering the Vicar, Guy Moncrieff, at her local Church is very unsettling and when they seem to meet in unexpected places, they both realise there could be a little more to their relationship than a brief meeting in a bar in Pall Mall.
As George’s story unfolds, so too does Guy Moncrieff’s as he too has to wrestle with not only his belief in God, but his injuries, the Bishop trying to marry him off to his niece, a turf war happening between the Choir Master and the Church Organist over the BBC wishing to broadcast Nine Lessons and Carols live on Christmas Eve, settling into a new community which sees Guy feeling at wit’s end.
As they work together to bring the Carol service to perfection, they realize what was a fleeting moment in a bar, contains far more than just that; they both begin to dream, to hope, to believe but all is not as it seems, as Georgie’s past lover, Percy Cuthbertson is, in one way or another determined to get George back.
Can these two damaged people find love, or will their past prevent them from discovering a new life together is yet to be discovered.
Once again Jean Fullarton has delivered a delightful tale in Christmas with the East End Girls of two young people looking for a new beginning in the devastation that is War, which fits most delightfully into the very essence of Christmas message of love, forgiveness, acceptance and new beginnings.