The Ration Book Daughter
By Jean Fullerton

This book is charmingly written, showing the juxtopositions of love and war. It is a page-turner and shows great strength over adversity. Discover more in my blog and review. Then find puchase links and social media links below.

About the Author

Author Bio – Born and bred in East London Jean is a District Nurse by trade and has worked as a NHS manager and as a senior lecture in Health and Nursing Studies. She left her day job to become a full-time writer in 2015 and has never looked back.

In 2006 she won the Harry Bowling Prize and now has seventeen sagas published over three series with both Orion and Atlantic all of which are set in East London.

She is an experienced public speaker with hundreds of WI and women’s club talks under her belt, plus for the past fifteen years she has sailed all over the world as an enrichment speaker and writing workshop leader on cruise ships.

Blurb

Not even the Blitz can shake a mother’s love.

Cathy was a happy, blushing bride when Britain went to war with Germany three years ago. But her youthful dreams were crushed by her violent husband Stanley’s involvement with the fascist black-shirts, and even when he’s conscripted to fight she knows it’s only a brief respite – divorce is not an option. Cathy, a true Brogan daughter, stays strong for her beloved little son Peter.

When a telegram arrives declaring that her husband is missing in action, Cathy can finally allow herself to hope – she only has to wait 6 months before she is legally a widow and can move on with her life. In the meantime, she has to keep Peter safe and fed. So she advertises for a lodger, and Sergeant Archie McIntosh of the Royal Engineers’ Bomb Disposal Squad turns up. He is kind, clever and thoughtful; their mutual attraction is instant. But with Stanley’s fate still unclear, and the Blitz raging on over London’s East End, will Cathy ever have the love she deserves?

Review

A Ration Book Daughter tells it how it was for some families and the soldiers in the middle of the times of the blitz. Although the book deals with the hardest of times of the war, it is easy to find some escapism within the book as the easy to follow plot is absorbing and has great characters within it. There are also some controversial characters too as one of them, even though declared a hero, is also accused by some people of loving the Nazis. This puts rather an intriguing spin on things.

Other main characters are Cathy and Vi who don’t always see eye-to-eye and have some heated exchanges.
There’s also Sergeant McIntosh of The Royal Engineer’s Bomb Disposal Squad, who is charming and who she gets to know very well indeed.

There are the hardships and darkness that war brings, but there are also glimmers of hope and bravery, that is unique to only the harshest of times. It tells things how they were and that gives the book strenghth and people’s learning a bit of strength and a bit of prodding in a sense, as they can see that no matter how bad things get, there are times that can actually be surprisingly uplifting.

This book shows love over adversity and strength of character in even the most troubling of times and when life and death hang in the balance. It shows that when there’s an enemy and also certain predjudices are around; that life goes on and nothing can stop the love of your child or romance from blossoming.