I love it when I get the opportunity to review the new book in a series - especially one that I loved! If you haven't already, check out my review of book 5 in the Shipyard Girls series here! Courage of the Shipyard Girls is book 6, the next instalment Nancy Revell's brilliant series.
Published: 21st February 2019 by Arrow
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Amazon US - Preorder Now!
About the book:
Sunderland, 1942
Polly's heart and her future are hanging in the balance… Polly’s sweetheart Tommy has been declared missing while serving overseas, and although there is no certainty that he is dead, there is no guarantee that he will return home. Now Polly needs her friends more than ever, and the other women welders are ready to rally around her while she waits for news.
The only one not showing support is shipyard manager, Helen. But looks can be deceiving, and beneath her cold exterior, Helen is wrestling with demons of her own, including one life-changing decision that could lead to potential ruin. As the war continues, the shipyard girls must support one another as they bravely soldier on.
As the war rages on, their friendship must be stronger than ever.
About the author:
A little look inside:
Chapter
One
The letter
floated to the ground before a gentle breeze lifted it up again at the exact
time a tram was trundling down the length of Tatham Street.
Like
the first draw of a fire as it catches, the letter was sucked under the metal
belly of the carriage and disappeared
from view.
By
the time the tram had screeched its way past number 34, the letter had been
unceremoniously spat out again into the still morning air, and after another
brief flutter it landed by the side of the road.
The
letter’s near demise did not go unnoticed, though. For two minutes earlier, at
the exact time Polly had been leaving for work and had bumped into the
postwoman, Maud Goode had been having her usual early-morning tussle with the heavy
blackout curtains that adorned her bedroom window.
‘Mavis!’
Maud kept her sight focused on the letter now languishing in the gutter across
the road from where she and her sister lived above the sweet shop they jointly
owned.
‘Mavis!’
Her tone was different to the one she normally adopted to wake her sister. This
morning her voice was serious. Urgent. Lacking its usual annoyance that she
was, as always, the first to rise.
‘What’s
the matter?’ Mavis’s voice was croaky with sleep.
‘Something’s
wrong.’ Maud tightened the cord of her dressing gown around her ample waist and
hurried out of the bedroom. In a matter of seconds, she had made it down the
narrow staircase and out the front door. Bumping into a couple of shipyard
workers, Maud ignored their apologies as well as their look of surprise at
seeing her cross the road in just her nightclothes and slippers, her pink plastic curlers still in her hair.
Having
made it to the other side, Maud was forced to wait until a double-decker bus
had crunched through its gears and passed before she could bend down and pick
up the letter, now smudged with dirt.
Shoving it straight into the pocket of her
robe, Maud looked left, then right, before making her way back to the house.
‘I’m
in the kitchen,’ Mavis shouted out, hearing the front door clash.
Walking
into the scullery, Maud saw that her sister was making a big pot of tea.
‘What’s
wrong?’ Mavis asked again as her sister pulled out a chair and sat down at the
kitchen table.
Maud
didn’t reply but reached into her pocket and retrieved the letter, her plump
hands straightening the thick sheet of crumpled paper out on the wooden
tabletop. The kettle started to whistle and Mavis poured steaming hot water
into the ceramic teapot.
‘Young
Polly . . . ’ Maud looked up at her sister. ‘She just got this.’ Her eyes
dropped to the letter now spread out in front of her.
‘Poor
bairn went white as a ghost. I thought she was going to go back inside, but she
didn’t. She got something out of her pocket and then just walked off down the
street. Looked like she was in a trance.’
Mavis
brought the teapot over and placed it on the table. She stirred before pouring
out two cups, adding milk and half a teaspoon of sugar to each.
‘Go
on then,’ she said, nodding across to the letter.‘What’s it say?’
Extracted from Courage of the Shipyard Girls by Nancy Revell, the sixth book in the Shipyard Girls series (out today, Arrow, paperback, £7.99)
So... what are you waiting for! Order this next book in the series and don't forget to leave a comment below once you've read it to let me know what you thought!
Chat soon beautifuls,
