‘Wartime Blues for the Harper Girls’ by Rosie Clarke is the fifth book in the Harper Girls series and one of my favourite historical fiction series. Rosie Clarke has again written another cracker of a Harper girls book. I couldn’t wait to be able to start it and revisit everyone in the Harper girls world.
We return to the Harpers in 1917, the First World War is still raging with lives being lost and everyone at home feeling the high cost of the war. Everyone has someone to worry about, be it no contact or injuries. The Harpers Store is finding it harder to source items for the shop and generally, the quality of the goods are becoming inferior with the materials going to the war effort.
Sally is doing her best to find stock to fill the shop, her husband Ben is still playing an important part in the war, helping the country he now calls his own. Sally is being followed by a woman who she doesn’t know or even why? In the centre of all this Sally falls ill and Ben is scared he will lose her.
Beth stopped working for Harpers when she had little Jack. Now she is pregnant with her second and Jack is away serving in the Merchant Navy. She comes to Harpers as a customer and to catch up with Sally.
Maggie is a nurse on the frontline she has been devoted to treating soldiers and helping them be comfortable in their last minutes since her Fiancé Tim died. In a sad turn of events, Maggie ends up ill with the fever the soldiers get from the trenches. As she becomes stable she is shipped home to be treated at a hospital. After she is over the illness she is sent to convalesce in Devon. While there she strikes up an unlikely friendship.
Rachel is still working at the Harper’s store. Her marriage seems to be floundering, her relationship is not prospering and things are about to get a whole lot worse. Marion has been loving married life and then Reggie, her husband, was sent to the front. Leaving her to care for everyone, carry on working in the hat department at Harper’s and help out as a window dresser as well.
All the Harper girls are present and correct in this Instalment. Again Rosie Clarke has brought multiple story strands and magically weaved them together so everyone is entwined with each other. I am never bored when I read these books. The fantastic sense of community and togetherness that comes with each book reminds me a little of the communities we had when I was young, and I truly miss that. Maybe that is what draws me to the Harpers, as well as the fact that they are historical sagas and I just love being in the past with friends…friends like these characters for sure.
Thank you to Rachel’s Random Resources, Boldwood Books, Rosie Clarke and NetGalley for the copy of the book.
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