Young Maisie Halliday has escaped the grinding poverty of the northern town where she was born and now lives in the glittering world of professional dancing. At the outbreak of the Second World War, she volunteers as an ambulance driver, finding joy both in helping the wounded during the Blitz and also in her friends among the other drivers in the Bloomsbury Auxiliary Ambulance Depot. Maisie is at the Cafe de Paris nightclub when it is bombed. In the chaos, she attempts to help an injured man, and by this charitable act she becomes mixed up in what may well be a murder. A series of incidents, all connected to a handsome, arrogant American, throw Maisie's life into a dangerous spin. Is anything what it seems in wartime? With one serious misjudgement, Maisie risks losing everything she holds dear...

Praised by the Chicago Sun-Times for its “furious, indignant power,” this story offers a rare, funny, bitter, and feminist look at war. First published in London in 1930, Not So Quiet... (on the Western Front) describes a group of British women ambulance drivers on the French front lines during World War I, surviving shell fire, cold, and their punishing commandant, "Mrs. Bitch." The novel takes the guise of an autobiography by Smith, pseudonym for Evadne Price. The novel's power comes from Smith's outrage at the senselessness of war, at her country's complacent patriotism, and her own daily contact with the suffering and the wounded.

As featured on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. 1914: war has broken out across Europe and beyond. Nothing will ever be the same again for those caught up in the conflict. This collection of short stories explores how the First World War changed and shaped the lives of women forever. A courageous nurse risks her life at the Front Line; a young woman discovers independence and intrigue in wartime London; and a grief-stricken widow defends her homeland amidst the destruction of war. Through these and other tales, War Girls presents a moving portrait of loss and grief, and of hope overcoming terrible odds.

Nursing.

It's January 1943. Australia is at war and Perth is buzzing. US troops have permanently docked in the city in what local men refer to bitterly as the American occupation, and Perth women are having the time of their lives. The Americans have money, accents like movie stars, smart tailored uniforms and good manners. What's more, they love to dance and show a girl a good time, and young women are throwing caution to the wind and pushing social boundaries with their behaviour. Not Meg Eaton, however. The war has brought her nothing but heartbreak, stealing her young love eighteen months ago. Until, in the middle of a Perth heat-wave, she meets her lost lover's brother, Tom standing over a dead body in her neighbour's backyard. Suddenly, Meg finds herself embroiled in the murder mystery, and increasingly involved with Tom Lagrange. But is he all that he seems? And what exactly was his relationship with the dead woman? Debut author Deborah Burrows has brought her skills as a historian to the fore with this meticulously researched and thoroughly entertaining novel of love and intrigue.

ONE OF HAY FESTIVAL'S 100 BEST BOOKS WRITTEN BY WOMEN IN THE LAST 100 YEARS. 'The most gripping piece of war reportage I have ever read. What a writer! Her observations, mixed with dry humour and compassion, place her at the heart of the conflict and somehow apart from it, as a good historian should be. Remarkable.' Joanna Lumley Train to Nowhere is a memoir of war seen through the sardonic eyes of Anita Leslie, a funny and vivacious young woman who reports on her experiences with a dry humour, finding the absurd alongside the tragic. Daughter of a Baronet and first cousin once removed to Winston Churchill, Lelsie joined the Mechanized Transport Corps as a fully trained mechanic and ambulance driver during World War II, serving in Libya, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France and Germany. Ahead of her time, Anita bemoans 'first-rate women subordinate to second-rate men', and, as the British Army forbade women from serving at the front, joined the Free French Forces in order to do what she felt was her duty. Writing letters in Hitler's recently vacated office and marching in the Victory parade contrast with observations of seeing friends murdered and a mother avenging her son by coldly shooting a prisoner of war. Unflinching and unsentimental, Train to Nowhere is a memoir of Anita's war, one that, long after it was written, remains poignant and relevant.

May, 1941. Meet the Air Raid Girls: three young women keen to do their bit during the Yorkshire blitz. Connie's life has taken an unexpected turn since her husband died - she's living at home and working in the family bakery - but night shifts as an ARP Warden give her a firm sense of purpose. Her younger sister Lizzie is eager to play her part too, perhaps as an ambulance driver. Her fiance refuses to support her decision... but does he really know what's best for her? Twenty-year-old Pamela has led a sheltered life, but when her family's home is destroyed in a raid she must learn to stand on her own two feet - helped by new friends. As bombs fall and fires rage, the young women face the destruction of everything they've ever known. Can their fighting spirit prevail? And what of their families and the men they love? A thrilling and heartwarming new story of friendship, love and duty in wartime by the author of The Spitfire Girls, for fans of Elaine Everest and Rosie Hendry. **Don't miss the next two instalments in the series. The Air Raid Girls at Christmas and The Air Raid Girls: Wartime Brides are available now!** --------------------------------------------- Readers LOVE the Air Raid Girls series: 'There wasn't anything I didn't like about this book' 5 star review 'In all the women at war series of book I have read so far, I think this is the best' 5 star review 'I couldn't put this book down' 5 star review 'Loved the whole story. Hated it coming to an end' 5 star review 'Just the kind of book I like' 5 star review

Treating the wounded, often under fire, before removing them from danger in North Africa and throughout the entire Italian campaign. Detailed memories and experiences.

This war has been described as "Months of boredom, punctuated by moments of intense fright." The writer of these sketches has experienced many "months of boredom," in a French military field hospital, situated ten kilometres behind the lines, in Belgium. During these months, the lines have not moved, either forward or backward, but have remained dead-locked, in one position. Undoubtedly, up and down the long-reaching kilometres of "Front" there has been action, and "moments of intense fright" have produced glorious deeds of valour, courage, devotion, and nobility. But when there is little or no action, there is a stagnant place, and in a stagnant place there is much ugliness. Much ugliness is churned up in the wake of mighty, moving forces. We are witnessing a phase in the evolution of humanity, a phase called War-and the slow, onward progress stirs up the slime in the shallows, and this is the Backwash of War. It is very ugly. There are many little lives foaming up in the backwash. They are loosened by the sweeping current, and float to the surface, detached from their environment, and one glimpses them, weak, hideous, repellent. After the war, they will consolidate again into the condition called Peace. After this war, there will be many other wars, and in the intervals there will be peace. So it will alternate for many generations. By examining the things cast up in the backwash, we can gauge the progress of humanity. When clean little lives, when clean little souls boil up in the backwash, they will consolidate, after the final war, into a peace that shall endure. But not till then.

Army Girls tells the unique and compelling story of the women who lived and fought during the Second World War. It is a celebration of the phenomenal achievements of women who gave everything to their country and joined the armed forces at the outbreak of war. At long last, the story of their service will be heard, interwoven with events and precious moments from 1939-45. Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Conscription Act which then allowed British women to enter service into the armed forces, it the final chance to hear the incredible true stories from some of the very last living female veterans of the conflict, who capture a pivotal moment in British history from a woman's perspective. Army Girls is about belonging, resilience, gender, fear, life and death. More than any other oral history from veterans of WWII published, this one is bedded in the present day, too. The Coronavirus pandemic has shaped the last year of these women's lives, there are both parallels and paradoxes. War was about opportunity and comradery, Covid is isolation and resilience, where memory and nostalgia play an even bigger role. This book is a fitting tribute to them all - the living and the dead.