MY THOUGHTS AND BOOK REVIEW
Heart warming plot which was crafted well and I loved it!! One of the best WW2 novels I have read in a while. The novel takes pace with a great picture of the WW2 in London 1940. Josie Banks worked at a shop just past the Mile End tube station near Thames outside the front door where a discreet sign read THE COPPER KETTLE TEAROOM. The tearoom had been started by a Jewish old lady Madame Olga back in the early days of the century where she fled Russia. Olga attempted to create a tiny glimmer of civilization amid the bustle of the East End. Lace edged table cloths and pretty pink and - white flowered china, teacakes and sandwiches with the crust cut off. Housewives and children came to Copper Kettle who wanted a cup of tea and a minute's escape from the chores.
Jose Banks was married to Stanley Banks who had been called up into Army and for five year she hadn't worked other than for a garment factory. She stayed being a housewife for five years. she wanted to work as there is war. Olga was a Jew, her husband was murdered and Josie was ready to makeover the shop for Olga with some refinement. Josie was an asset at the Copper Kettle. After five year of looking after her five siblings, following her mother's death, the work didn't seem hard, and Josie loved chatting with customers, making sure all the china sparkled and trying to stretch the flour and margarine to bake the occasional cake or biscuit.
After Stanley left back to the Army, Josie gets back to her tea shop business and Madame Olga. The tea shop remained a charmed little haven, too good to be true, until the autumn of 1940, when the bombing started in Ernest. Night after night waves of bombers over London. The rumbling drone of hundreds of aircraft drowned out by air raid sirens. The sky crisscrossed with search lights. The burst of anti-aircraft guns and then the deep thump as a bomb landing one after the another.
It was too late after the bombing in London started, Josie found that she no longer had her Job and Madame Olga was dead in the bombings by Germany. It felt as if everything she cared about had been snatched from her in one instant. The tea shop had been like home. she hadn't realized how fond she had become of the old lady. Madame Olga had become the grandmother she never knew, someone who had time to listen to and appreciate her. And now she was gone. Josie realized she needed to find another Job.
Again Josie finds herself and her house to be bombed by Germany left alone with broken collar bones surviving somehow the drastic aftermaths of bomb. She had nothing and nowhere to go. Many of them have lost family members in the bombing- children buried in rubble. Everyone is grieving and in shock and frankly no one has answers. Gripping story and a page turner until the end. I would rate it 5 star!
I just reviewed Where the Sky Begins by Rhys Bowen. #Where the Sky Begins #NetGalley
Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advance copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.
Disclosure of Material: I have received a review copy of this book by the publisher in the form of e-book from NET GALLEY as Advance Reader Copy. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”
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