This week I'm taking a look at some of the reviews for A Wedding for the Home Front Girls that have been posted on NetGalley in advance of publication.   Huge thanks to all the NetGalley readers/reviewers. Yoru contributios make a real difference.

"... this absolutely beautiful heartwarming saga... another fulfilling story, of love, friendship, heartache and above all working on together during WW2."

"If there is one thing this book teaches you it’s not to prejudge people... The bonus was getting to the end to discover that there will be another one, can’t wait."

"A wonderful addition in the series. A feel good read full of hopes and dreams."

"...(the) wartime backdrop is carefully crafted, and the story is full of heart and sensitivity. I'm already looking forward to the next in the series."

"Aww, its like reading a letter from friends. I loved being back with the girls and it felt like it seamlessly left off from where the other one ended."

"This is the fourth book in the series and still just as exciting as the first book was... I have come to love these girls over the series, and I felt so much for Sally, and it was lovely to see her relationship with her mum grow."

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Pre-order link - £1.99 on Kindle

Well, I don't mind telling that I've been dying to use the above picture. I couldn't wait to show you the five Home Front Girls books all in a row.

Book 5, A Baby for the Home Front Girls, has now had its official cover reveal, so at last I'm able to feature it here on my website. Isn't it gorgeous?

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Pre-order it on Kindle here.

And here's the blurb...

Manchester, 1942: With war raging in the skies, can the Home Front Girls find the happiness they so deserve?

When Betty and her best friend Sally discover a baby tucked in a blanket amongst the rubble at the Manchester Salvage Depot, they can barely believe their eyes. As Betty holds the baby in her arms, she feels a familiar longing stir in her chest. Might she and her husband be allowed to care for this abandoned child, and create the family they have always longed for?

Sally is shocked when she realises she too has news: she’s pregnant and the two friends begin planning for the new arrival. But with Andrew serving overseas, and Sally’s health a cause for concern, she must do everything she can to care for the precious life inside her.

When the grandparents of the abandoned baby are found, Betty’s heart breaks. She has grown to love this child if she was her own, and she’ll do whatever it takes to provide a safe home for this baby. Then Sally’s health takes a dramatic turn for the worst, and an anxious night is spent waiting for news as the residents of Star House rally to support one another.

With two precious lives to fight for, the future feels more perilous than ever before. Will Betty finally become the mother she has always wanted to be? And will Sally be able to give her husband the most precious homecoming gift of all?

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This fifth book in The Home Front Girls series is an absolutely gripping and heart-wrenching romantic saga.

Readers love The Home Front Girls series:

‘I loved this!… immediately got me hooked… perfect… I honestly couldn’t wait to get stuck in… had me quickly flying through the pages. I was sad to finish it but so happy to have read it. They are so addicting! Next one needed stat.’ stuck_in_the_book_loop ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘A big tear jerker!… full of love, companionship, friendship… Fantastic… big five stars.’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘So so good I just could not put this down. Full of family, friendship and companionship, it will pull at all your heartstrings.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘What a joy to read!… a delightful offering of friendship, love, duty, bravery and resilience… wonderful… made me smile throughout.’ the.bookjunction ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Completely gorgeous!… Heartwarming… Perfect… Will have you grinning ear to ear.’ coffeeandpages2021 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I imagine you know what royalties are? This is the way authors get paid - it is our cut of the money earned from the sales of our books. Traditionally, royalties were paid twice a year, in the spring and the autumn, in each case for the previous six-month period, though now some of the newer publishers have different royalty periods.

Having had my latest six-monthly statement, I thought you might like to know which of my Railway Girls books, written as Maisie Thomas, came out on top in the royalty stakes...

Well, the top seller in the previous six months was....

Courage of the Railway Girls

This was the book that introduced both Emily and Persephone as viewpoint characters. It was such a pleasure to let them open up to the readers and reveal their true thoughts and feelings.

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Blurb:

Manchester, 1943

Emily is enjoying her new job as a station porter until she learns that a trusted friend at work may be involved in something underhand...

Persephone's romance with Matt is blossoming - but can two people from such different walks of life really make a go of it?

All is going well with wedding planning for Mabel until someone divulges a secret about Harry, which could threaten their future.

As war rages around them, the railway girls must face their own battles. With the support of one another, will they make the right decisions when it comes to matters of the heart?

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At the time of writing this blog, the paperback price on Amazon is £3.11.

Over recent weeks, it has been a huge pleasure to introduce you to my latest book, A New Home at the Wartime Hotel, which is the first in my new series.   I can’t wait for the hotel doors to open so you can come inside and meet Kitty, Beatrice and Lily. I hope you’re going to love them, laugh and cry with them, and think of them as your friends.

The story is set on the Home Front and everyone has to cope with air raids, rationing, the blackout, the fear of invasion and the worry of loved ones being overseas. As well as this, Kitty, Lily and Beatrice have their own personal difficulties to contend with, and a staunch friendship grows between them as they support one another.

This is what I love writing about – female friendships and the ways women look out for one another. I also love bringing together characters who, in the normal course of things, would never have met, but when things go wrong and are at their bleakest, that’s when these characters find one another – and suddenly they have a safety net of concern, understanding and togetherness to rely on and help them to stay strong, not just for the duration of the war but for the rest of their lives.

I hope you’re going love being friends with Kitty, Lily and Beatrice.

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In my previous two blogs, I introduced you to Kitty and Lily from A New Home at the Wartime Hotel. Today - meet Beatrice.

Beatrice Inkerman spends her life making the best of things, which isn’t always easy when you do the job she does. She doesn’t let herself see how tough things are for her. Hard-working, capable, dependable… or is she just plain boring?

The chance of war work is dangled in front of her, but will she be deemed suitable? And what about all those children – the ones who remind her of herself when she was a girl? Can she really bring about much-needed change in their difficult circumstances?

Beatrice’s hitherto predictable life is about to get very interesting.

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Links to Amazon for the Kindle and the paperback.

A New Home at the Wartime Hotel, book 1 in my new Dunbar's Hotel series, will be published on March 27th.

Blurb:

1940, Manchester

Kitty learned early on in her marriage that her husband, Bill Dunbar, isn’t reliable with money. So she’s hopeful, when they inherit the Dunbar family hotel at the start of the war, that their financial worries will be over… until the bailiffs turn up! With Bill working hard in the Auxiliary Fire Service to protect Manchester from German bombing raids, it’s up to Kitty to turn things around for her family.

Lily worked as a chambermaid at Dunbar’s before the war. But her relationship with Daniel, a merchant seaman, was complicated by class differences and the disapproval of Daniel’s mother. Now Lily discovers she’s pregnant – and with Daniel away at sea she faces the judgement and scorn of wider society all alone. Will Kitty and Dunbar’s come to her rescue?

Beatrice is in her forties, unmarried, and working to support households with elderly or infirm relatives: a job that exposes her to the harsh realities of poverty and sacrifice. But when she bumps into an old flame at Dunbar’s hotel, she wonders whether there’s an opportunity to change her own life for the better.

Can the Dunbar’s hotel community pull together and provide a beacon of hope and resilience, in the dark days of war?

Last week I introduced you to Kitty Dunbar from A New Home at the Wartime Hotel. This week, it's Lily's turn.

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That's Lily, on the left  in the main picture.

Life should have been straightforward for Lily. With her humble working class origins, she was lucky to secure a live-in post at Dunbar’s Hotel after she left school aged 14. Everything goes well for her until she meets Daniel, a handsome young merchant navy officer, and they fall head over heels in love. That’s when the problems start. Can two people from such different walks of life ever be truly happy together? Not if Daniel’s mother has anything to do with it…

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Amazon links:   Kindle   paperback   Audible 

Publication day is March 27th.

Following on from last week's blog, in which I introduced you to the background to my new series, The Wartime Hotel, written as MaisieThomas, this week I'm delighted to introduce you to the first of my three viewpoint characters - Kitty Dunbar.

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That's Kitty in the middle.

With a husband who spends money like there’s no tomorrow, and a sharp-eyed mother-in-law who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, you could be forgiven for thinking Kitty Dunbar’s marriage wasn’t made in heaven… but marriage to Bill has given Kitty her sunny-natured daughter Abigail and that makes up for everything. Well – almost. Moving into Dunbar’s Hotel offers Kitty a marvellous opening, but when disaster strikes, can she turn calamity into opportunity and give her beloved Abbie the security she deserves?

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Book 1 in the series is A New Home at the Wartime Hotel.

Pre-order links: Kindle, paperback and Audible   

Publication day is March 27th.

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To sign up to my Maisie Thomas Newsletter, click here.

I've previously shown off the cover and the blurb of my forthcoming book, A New Home at the Wartime Hotel, written as Maisie Thomas.   Now I'd like to introduce you to the background to the story.

During the Second World War, an obvious feature of air raids was being bombed out. This meant your home was destroyed or else rendered uninhabitable. The normal thing to do in this situation was to move in with family, something that thousands upon thousands of people all over the country were obliged to do. When this happened, it almost always lasted for the duration of the entire war.

The worst time for air raids was the summer of 1940 through to the summer of 1941. If you lost your home during that time and had to move in with Auntie Ethel, the chances were that you’d still be at Auntie Ethel’s when the war ended in 1945… and for some considerable time afterwards.

It wasn’t just people who got displaced. Their possessions did too. In many cases, if a house took a direct hit, then all the furniture and other things were blown to smithereens; but if a house was simply damaged and made uninhabitable, very often many of the possessions were left intact – and they all had to be stored somewhere. You couldn’t take them with you to Auntie Ethel’s because she hadn’t got enough space, not least because Grandma, Auntie Flo, Cousin Rodney and the cat had also been bombed out and had moved in with her as well.

So where were all these possessions put? There were what we would refer to as storage facilities, but you won't be surprised to hear that these got filled up pretty quickly. People had to make whatever arrangements they could.

How about a small hotel, where they’ve lost all their guest-room furniture to the bailiffs, so they set themselves up as a storage place? Welcome to Dunbar’s!

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If you like the sound of this, here is the pre-order link. Publication day is March 27th.

This week I am delighted to welcome a newcomer to my blog - author and creative writing tutor Julie Hartley.   Julie is the author of the Second World War story Her Secret Soldier. Her latest title is The Promise She Made, which was published on February 12th.   She is here with us today as part of the Cover Love series, to celebrate the beautiful cover of The Promise She Made.

Cover Love… with Julie Hartley

When I saw the cover for my second historical novel, The Promise She Made, I fell in love with it. My main character, Ruby, is a strong and determined young woman, and the artist captures this perfectly in her expression. As the Battle of Britain rages on in summer 1940, Ruby defies her aunt and her fiancé by booking passage for herself and her little sister to Canada. She’s determined to keep her sister safe – it was her last promise to her dying mother.

The shattered buildings behind Ruby are also significant, and I was thrilled when I saw those. Ruby fails to keep her sister safe because their ship – the SS City of Benares – is torpedoed by the Nazis in the middle of the Atlantic. After little Eliza is reported ‘lost at sea’ Ruby must return to England and put together the shattered pieces of her life. She does this while the London Blitz is underway, so she faces enormous turmoil, inside and out.

I also really liked the colour scheme for this cover – the mauve shades behind the images.

My first novel – Her Secret Soldier – was set in a cottage deep in an ancient forest, and that cover had a blue/green palette, which was perfect.

The Promise She Made is a more urgent, dramatic, emotional tale, and the shades of purple reflect that.

I loved writing this book, which is all about the struggles of a young woman to come to terms with the past and build a meaningful future for herself. It’s also a bit of a mystery tale, too. Ruby trains to be a spy, so she can help defeat the Nazis, who torpedoed a ship full of innocent children – and that’s when she discovers a letter that hints at an unexpected possibility....

Her sister might still be alive.

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Amazon link:

https://geni.us/ThePromiseSheMade

Julie Hartley’s website :

www.juliehartley.co.uk

After Tania Crosse's guest blog last week in which she told us about the background to her new novel, The Butterfly Girl, this week I am delighted to share with you my review of the book.

As regular readers of Tania's novels will expect, this is meticulously reseached story has a strong sense of both place and time as the reader is transported to the West Country in wartime. The scene featuring the bombing of Plymouth is particularly and absorbing. It is impossible not to be moved by the fate of the maternity buildling and those inside it.

The rounded characters are well-developed and authentic. The main character, Pippa, determined to follow her cherished dream of nursing, is appealing and relatable. The author captures the sense of the wartime community - the way people stuck together and supported one another through everything that was thrown at them.

A story of love, tragedy, resilience and hope that will delight Tania Crosse's fans and garner her many more.

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Link to The Butterfly Girl on Amazon