A girl's guide to winning the war by Annie Lyons

We often read war genre where the reader is transported to the horrors of the battlefield, or the dangers of the Resistance, or we experience the lives of those escaping precarious situations. In this new release we meet Peggy, a seemingly plain and naive young woman from a loving extended family who finds herself working for The Ministry of Information in the Publications Department as a proof-reader. Enticed from her job in her local library, with the promise of doing something to help those fighting overseas, which includes her twin brother Joe, Peggy is thrown in the deep end in an occupation which she has no training for. She comes up against ‘the establishment’ but holds her own and with the support from her loving mother Alice and her feisty beloved grandmother, Emily, she is quietly able to make a difference.

Meeting fellow co-worker Lady Marigold Cecily, who is always late after nights out on the town, does not go well initially and yet through tragedy and drama they gradually learn to accept each other for who they are. Marigold longs for love and acceptance and finds it with Peggy and her family and their friendship grows. In a time when women were still thought incapable of doing anything worthwhile, Peggy and Marigold set out to prove through various printed publications that women are the silent driving force behind the men on the Front and those families who are at home in England.

Being a story set over a number of years, the main characters experience death, grief, loss, danger as well as great joy. Peggy learns that while she did not set the world on fire, she contributed to the mental well-being and safety of many men fighting overseas and those left behind trying to survive.

Themes: World War Two, Friends, Family, Ministry of Information, Books.

Kathryn Beilby