A Christmas Gift for the East End Library Girls

 A Christmas Gift for the East End Library Girls

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       August 26, 2024

 

Author  Patricia McBride

Distributor:      Amazon UK
ISBN:                 978-1835180211
Publisher:         Boldwood Books
Release Date:   August 2024  

   Website:   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Christmas-Gift-East-Library-Girls

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A Christmas Gift for the East End Library Girls continues the World War II saga Library Girls Book 3, created by Patricia McBride, set during the Blitz in the East End of London, an area hit hardest in the Bombing.

It’s October 1941 with London still reeling from the German Bombardments when Mavis, Cordelia and Jane are left stunned by a call from Buckingham Palace saying the King and Queen want to visit their Library. They are all seriously flustered at this unexpected honour and wonder how they are going to clean up the tired looking building with nothing much to work with to make presentable.

True to their very roots the people of the East End and Library users rally to the cause with even the crustiest, most difficult people offering their skills, help and treasures, to get the library ship shape over the next few weeks. Christmas is fast approaching as well just to add another layer of challenge to life in Silvertown.

A slow burn to begin with it takes a little while to understand the protagonists: Mavis who desperately wants to adopt a little girl orphaned in the Bombings. Jane whose husband is away fighting on the front, their daughter having been sent to a family in the country, is in despair as she misses her beautiful girl and wonders how she is faring.

Cordelia, whose beloved Robert is a Doctor serving on the front, runs the library and to her, the ladies along with Tom their young volunteer are like family, banding together to get through the hardship of daily life.

Within the structure of the story Patricia McBride looks at the issues of domestic abuse, post-traumatic stress and the heart breaking devastation war causes, through the eyes of the men and women of the East End, out to make their Library a showcase for visiting Royalty.

Heart breaking at times, but written as a tribute to all the women who struggled to survive physically and emotionally through indescribable hardship on a daily basis, A Christmas Gift For The East End Library Girls is a most enjoyable, if slightly old fashioned, read.

Fiction