The Land Girls

The Land Girls
Author: Annie Wilkinson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2014-09-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1471115399

Hull, 1943. Seventeen-year-old Muriel Dearlove has weathered the Blitz unscathed, earning her keep in Miss Chapman's grocery shop. But with her sweetheart Bill away fighting and and her friends conscripted into the WRENs and WAAF, life has become tedious. Then a friend returns from a stint in the Land Army, rosy cheeked and healthier than ever thanks to the outdoor work she has been doing on Northumberland's farms. She also comes with tales of dances with the troops stationed nearby and high jinks with her fellow Land Girls. Desperate for the chance to broaden her horizons, Muriel signs up. But getting back to the land is not all about making hay in the sunshine. The reality is long days of back-breaking work with little thanks from the hard-nosed warden Mrs Hubbard. Meanwhile the relationship between the Land Girls and the locals has reached crisis point. Then Muriel meets Ernst, a German prisoner of war, and has a choice to make. In fraternizing with the enemy she breaks the law, but to never see Ernst again would break her heart.

This Tender Land

This Tender Land
Author: William Kent Krueger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1476749310

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! “If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing, you’ll love This Tender Land...This story is as big-hearted as they come.” —Parade The unforgettable story of four orphans who travel the Mississippi River on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression. In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own. Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

Clap When You Land

Clap When You Land
Author: Elizabeth Acevedo
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062882783

In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives. Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other. Great for summer reading or anytime! Clap When You Land is a Today show pick for “25 children’s books your kids and teens won’t be able to put down this summer!" Plus don't miss Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X and With the Fire on High!

The Land Girls of Goodwill House

The Land Girls of Goodwill House
Author: Fenella J Miller
Publisher: Boldwood Books Ltd
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2022-11-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1801628556

The instalment in Fenella J. Miller's bestselling Goodwill House series. August 1940 As Autumn approaches, Lady Joanna Harcourt is preparing for new guests at Goodwill House - land girls, Sally, Daphne and Charlie. Sally, a feisty blonde from the East End, has never seen a cow before, but she’s desperate to escape London and her horrible ex, Dennis. And although the hours are long and the work hard, Sal quickly becomes good friends with the other girls Daphne and Charlie and enjoys life at Goodwill House. Until Dennis reappears threatening to drag her back to London. Sal fears her life as a land girl is over, just as she finally felt worthy. But Lady Joanna has other ideas and a plan to keep Sal safe and doing the job she loves. Don't miss the next heart-breaking instalment in Fenella J. Miller's beautiful Goodwill House series. Praise for Fenella J. Miller: 'Curl up in a chair with Fenella J Miller's characters and lose yourself in another time and another place.' Lizzie Lane 'Engaging characters and setting which whisks you back to the home front of wartime Britain. A fabulous series!' Jean Fullerton

Wedding Bells for Land Girls

Wedding Bells for Land Girls
Author: Jenny Holmes
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1473542340

**Don't miss Jenny Holmes's latest wartime series, The Air Raid Girls. Part 3 - The Air Raid Girls: Wartime Brides - is available for pre-order now!** ---------------------------- Summer 1942. Britain is in the depths of war and the Women's Land Army is hard at work looking after the farms while the men are away fighting. While patriotism, duty and a wonderful spirit of camaraderie sustain the Land Girls through tough times, it's no surprise that love is also often on their minds. For Yorkshire Land Girls and firm friends Grace, Brenda and Una, romance in wartime comes with a host of challenges. There's a wedding to plan, but married bliss is threatened when the time comes for the groom to enlist. With lovers parted, anxious women have no idea whether they'll see their men again. And while single girls dance and flirt, will they be able to find true love among the men who've stayed behind? With the uncertainty of the times hanging over them and danger ever closer to home, can love stand the test of war? A heart-warming, romantic story of friendship, camaraderie and triumph over adversity that fans of Donna Douglas, Daisy Styles and Call the Midwife will adore. ---------------------------- Readers love Jenny Holmes: 'There wasn't anything I didn't like about this book' 5 star review 'I couldn't put this book down' 5 star review 'Loved the whole story' 5 star review 'This is a totally absorbing book' 5 star review 'An excellent read put together in fine style' 5 star review

The Women's Land Army in First World War Britain

The Women's Land Army in First World War Britain
Author: B. White
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2014-07-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137363908

Between 1917 and 1919 women enlisted in the Women's Land Army, a national organisation with the task of increasing domestic food production. Behind the scenes organisers laboured to not only recruit an army of women workers, but to also dispel public fears that Britain's Land Girls would be defeminized and devalued by their wartime experiences.

The British Booksellers

The British Booksellers
Author: Kristy Cambron
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2024-04-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0785232257

Inspired by real accounts of the Forgotten Blitz bombings, The British Booksellers highlights the courage of those whose lives were forever changed by war—and the stories that bind us in the fight for what matters most. A tenant farmer’s son had no business daring to dream of a future with an earl’s daughter, but that couldn’t keep Amos Darby from his secret friendship with Charlotte Terrington…until the reality of the Great War sobered youthful dreams. Now decades later, he bears the brutal scars of battles fought in the trenches and their futures that were stolen away. His return home doesn’t come with tender reunions, but with the hollow fulfillment of opening a bookshop on his own and retreating as a recluse within its walls. When the future Earl of Harcourt chose Charlotte to be his wife, she knew she was destined for a loveless match. Though her heart had chosen another long ago, she pledges her future even as her husband goes to war. Twenty-five years later, Charlotte remains a war widow who divides her days between her late husband’s declining estate and operating a quaint Coventry bookshop—Eden Books, lovingly named after her grown daughter. And Amos is nothing more than the rival bookseller across the lane. As war with Hitler looms, Eden is determined to preserve her father’s legacy. So when an American solicitor arrives threatening a lawsuit that could destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to preserve, mother and daughter prepare to fight back. But with devastation wrought by the Luftwaffe’s local blitz terrorizing the skies, battling bookshops—and lost loves, Amos and Charlotte—must put aside their differences and fight together to help Coventry survive. From deep in the trenches of the Great War to the storied English countryside and the devastating Coventry Blitz of World War II, The British Booksellers explores the unbreakable bonds that unite us through love, loss, and the enduring solace that can be found between the pages of a book. Split timeline: WWI and WWII Stand-alone novel Book length: 118,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs

They Fought in the Fields: The Women's Land Army

They Fought in the Fields: The Women's Land Army
Author: Nicola Tyrer
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016-07-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0752473425

"The Women's Land Army" was the forgotten victory of the Second World War. While troops fought on the front line, a battalion of young women joined up to take their place as agricultural workers. Despite many of them coming from urban backgrounds, these fearless, cheerful girls learnt how to look after farm land, operate and repair machinery, rear and manage farm animals, harvest crops and provide the work force that was badly needed in the years of the war. Back-breaking work such as thinning crops, continuous hoeing and digging made way for disgusting tasks such as rat-killing. Yet despite it all, the land girls were exuberant, fun-loving and hard-working, and became known for their articulate, feisty, humorous and modest attitude. It therefore comes as no surprise that despite hostility and teasing at the beginning, these robust farm workers won the hearts of the nation, and at the disbandment of the Land Army in the 1950s, the farming community were forced to eat their words. With delightful photographs documenting the camaraderie of the Land Army and real-life memories from those who joined, this nostalgic look at one of the real success stories of the Second World War will make modern women stand proud of what their grandmothers achieved in an era before our own.