ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – A Wedding for the Home Front Girls by Susanna Bavin
A Wedding for the Home Front Girls by Susanna Bavin is published by Bookouture and is out now. It’s the fourth book in the series and you can find my reviews of books one to three below. My thanks to the author for very kindly sending me a copy for review.
Courage for the Home Front Girls
Christmas for the Home Front Girls
I was thrilled to see my name in the acknowledgements! Thank you, Susanna. Your series has been a joy to read.
Manchester, 1941: Amid the heartbreak of war, can the girls band together to give their friend the wedding she deserves?
Kept apart by war work, bombs and blackouts, Lorna and her beloved George cherish every precious moment together. George’s vital role working for the War Office keeps him in London, while Lorna rolls up her sleeves to do her duty each day at the Manchester Salvage Depot, alongside her dearest friends, Sally and Betty.
When George proposes, Lorna is happier than she could ever have imagined. But her high spirits are soon dashed when she hears that the War Office is sending George to America. With the notoriously perilous Atlantic crossing standing between him and his safe return, suddenly Lorna’s future seems more under threat than ever before.
Despite the uncertainty, as the wedding date grows closer, the residents of Star House rally around Lorna to help her prepare. Even air raids and rationing can’t dampen the mood as a four-tiered wedding cake is fashioned out of cardboard. And when a beautiful wedding dress is gifted to her, the only thing left to do is anxiously await news of her fiancé…
Will Lorna and George get the happily-ever-after they dream of? And will the Home Front Girls finally be able to give their dear friend the perfect wedding day?
An absolutely page-turning and heart-wrenching romantic saga. Perfect for fans of Pam Howes, Rosie Clarke and Vicky Beeby.
A Wedding for the Home Front Girls is the fourth book in this series and picks up where book three left off. Sally is about to wave goodbye to her husband Andrew as he goes off to join the war effort, Betty is newly and happily married to Samuel and Lorna is enjoying being back in a romance with George and taking it slowly after the problems they had the first time round. All three are still working at the salvage yard and it’s now 1941.
I think this book is my favourite of the series so far. Perhaps it’s because I’m an old romantic and love a good wedding but I found it so lovely to see the girls come together and get stuck into helping to plan Lorna’s nuptials. As it’s wartime, nothing goes to plan and I found myself rooting for a happy ending for the handsome couple.
There’s heartbreak too and I had to wipe a tear away but despite it all, there’s such hopefulness and camaraderie that I got to the end and closed the book with a satisfied sigh. I’m looking forward to book five but it will be bittersweet as it’s the final book in the series.
A Wedding for the Home Front Girls is a delightful addition to the series and for any saga lovers the series as a whole is a must-read. I loved all the details of the wedding preparations and the dress, and it was a real pleasure to follow the girls as they went about their war work and their everyday lives.
Susanna Bavin writes stories with strong female characters, set in times when women needed determination and vision to make their mark. She loves domestic history and costume history and is fascinated by the legal position of women in the past.
She has written 4 standalone sagas and a WW2 saga series, The Home Front Girls. She is currently working on a new WW2 saga series.
She also writes as Polly Heron (The Surplus Girls 1920s saga series) and Maisie Thomas (The Railway Girls WW2 saga series, and The Wartime Hotel WW2 saga series).
Susanna lives on the beautiful North Wales coast with her husband and their two rescue cats. She is originally from Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester, where her family has lived for several generations and which provides the setting for her family sagas.