My second book from Elaine Spires and I am happy to be on this tour today to give you my thoughts on this historical fiction story. I am a history nerd and I frequently mention it in my reviews so this book was right up my street. I was quickly settled into this book and transported back through the years.
It’s November 1918 and the whole nation comes together to give thanks for the end of a bloody world war that has left few families unscathed. More than seven hundred thousand men have perished; those fortunate enough to return are mere shadows of the men who left. Women who have kept the country going by working in munitions factories and picking fruit and vegetables on farms and in market gardens are expected to give up their jobs to the men returning home. In the peaceful Essex village of Dagenham Milly Brightwell is among the women who are not happy at having to take a step back in peacetime as she dreams and makes plans of becoming her own boss.
But just as life returns to post-war normal, the London County Council announces its plans to build more than twenty-five thousand Homes for Heroes on the farmland and countryside surrounding Dagenham. Within the space of ten years the population will rocket to a hundred thousand people and the quiet country village will morph into the largest housing estate in Europe. For the families in Dagenham Village looking forward to better times in the 1920s, life will never be the same again.
We follow the lives of three women who live in the village of Dagenham, Elsie, Maudie and Milly. They are all about to face bug changes as the war is ending and the men are going to return to reclaim their jobs and lives too.
Milly is determined not to return to her life of service to her father, sister and niece. Spending all her time in drudgery and the house. She decides to set her own business up. Maudie is now a widow, her husband having died in battle and has to work hard to make sure she keeps a roof over their heads. Elsie is also a woman whose husband is missing presumed dead so she is struggling to stay afloat too.
We are part of these women’s stories as the small village begins to grow into a town with the building of thousands of houses for families that are relocated away from London.
A heartwarming saga that spans the years and took me back to that time with these women, I felt every emotion that ran through this story. The highs and the lows of Elsie, Maudie and Milly are told with such feelings. I didn’t want to leave these women and their lives behind when I got to the end of the book.
Elaine Spires must have poured her heart and soul into the research of everything in this novel. Every minute detail is included and the changes within the village alone send shock waves throughout the area. So many people arriving and growth into a town makes its mark.
A saga that surprised me in just how immersive it was. Yes, I have read books by Elaine Spires but this one, I thought it was amazing.
Thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources and Elaine Spires for my copy of the book.
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