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The Katherine Wheel #5
Woodbine
Lottie, her sister Isobel and Al, the man they both love, are on the brink of adulthood and the Second World War in Woodbine, the fifth book in The Katherine Wheel Series.
Trapped and alone in occupied France, Lottie must disguise her identity and avoid capture if she is to return and heal the bitter feud over the future of Cheadle Manor.
Back in England, Al is determined to prove himself. He joins the Air Transport Auxiliary service, flying aeroplanes to RAF bases all over the country.
Isobel defies everyone’s expectations by becoming a land girl. Bound by a promise to a dying woman, she struggles to break free and follow her heart.
Woodbine is the penultimate book in The Katherine Wheel Series.
Trapped and alone in occupied France, Lottie must disguise her identity and avoid capture if she is to return and heal the bitter feud over the future of Cheadle Manor.
Back in England, Al is determined to prove himself. He joins the Air Transport Auxiliary service, flying aeroplanes to RAF bases all over the country.
Isobel defies everyone’s expectations by becoming a land girl. Bound by a promise to a dying woman, she struggles to break free and follow her heart.
Woodbine is the penultimate book in The Katherine Wheel Series.
436 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 4, 2020
572 people are currently reading
270 people want to read
About the author
Alex Martin
11 books134 followersI came late to writing. No, that's wrong. I came late to publishing my writing. And what a thrilling ride it's proving to be.
I'm never happier than when bashing both brain and keyboard in my Plotting Shed wherever that may be! On gloriously creative days, I can look up and find hours have passed. I'm amazed the scenery is unchanged, fixed, when I've been absorbed in heart-stopping drama or tragedy, or romance.
At last, I am following my bliss. I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm dancing.
There was an old black and gold typewriter knocking about my childhood home. When I wasn't skinning my knees climbing trees or wandering aimlessly in the countryside with my dog and my dreams, I could be found, as now, typing away with imaginary friends whispering in my ear.
My first novel, The Twisted Vine, is based on a happy time picking grapes in France in the 1980s. I met some amazing people there but none as outrageous as those that sprang to life on my screen. Daffodils is based in Wiltshire, where I grew up. It attempts to portray how ordinary lives, and the rigid social order, were radically altered by the catalyst of the First World War. This book developed into The Katherine Wheel Series, with a sequel set in 1919 in the aftermath of WW1, Peace Lily, and Speedwell, taking the characters into the roaring twenties and the dangerous world of motor-racing. Willow (a novella) introduces the next generation who face daunting challenges in WW2 in Woodbine and Ivy, the final book in this epic saga which draws all the many threads together in the previous six books into a dramatic climax.
The Spirit Level comprises two dual-time ghost stories. The Rose Trail is set in the English Civil War and Triskelion has a Druid priestess giving Fay and Percy an urgent message for the modern world.
The next book is always just around the corner. I'm just listening to the whispers from the other side to get the full picture... And now that book (my tenth!) is here. Warrior Queens is the third book in The Spirit Level Series although the link is tenuous. Three friends struggle through adversity and only their bond can get them through. A modern tale of girlpower.
I'm never happier than when bashing both brain and keyboard in my Plotting Shed wherever that may be! On gloriously creative days, I can look up and find hours have passed. I'm amazed the scenery is unchanged, fixed, when I've been absorbed in heart-stopping drama or tragedy, or romance.
At last, I am following my bliss. I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm dancing.
There was an old black and gold typewriter knocking about my childhood home. When I wasn't skinning my knees climbing trees or wandering aimlessly in the countryside with my dog and my dreams, I could be found, as now, typing away with imaginary friends whispering in my ear.
My first novel, The Twisted Vine, is based on a happy time picking grapes in France in the 1980s. I met some amazing people there but none as outrageous as those that sprang to life on my screen. Daffodils is based in Wiltshire, where I grew up. It attempts to portray how ordinary lives, and the rigid social order, were radically altered by the catalyst of the First World War. This book developed into The Katherine Wheel Series, with a sequel set in 1919 in the aftermath of WW1, Peace Lily, and Speedwell, taking the characters into the roaring twenties and the dangerous world of motor-racing. Willow (a novella) introduces the next generation who face daunting challenges in WW2 in Woodbine and Ivy, the final book in this epic saga which draws all the many threads together in the previous six books into a dramatic climax.
The Spirit Level comprises two dual-time ghost stories. The Rose Trail is set in the English Civil War and Triskelion has a Druid priestess giving Fay and Percy an urgent message for the modern world.
The next book is always just around the corner. I'm just listening to the whispers from the other side to get the full picture... And now that book (my tenth!) is here. Warrior Queens is the third book in The Spirit Level Series although the link is tenuous. Three friends struggle through adversity and only their bond can get them through. A modern tale of girlpower.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
February 24, 2025
Such a great story!
As much as I loved the first book, I think I enjoyed this one even more. The story starts pre-World War II and follows the storylines of the children of Jem and Katy and Douglas and Cass. Both girls are in love with Al, but only Isobel has his attention. Lottie goes to France to get away from the pressures of being the Cheadle Manor heiress. She ignores her mother’s pleading to come home before the war begins and makes it impossible with closed borders.
From the start of the war, we begin to see some real growth in each of these characters as they each do their part for the war effort against the Nazis.
Isobel joins the Land Army and suffers under a cruel farmer who works her hard and starves her until a kind gentleman, a bit older, comes to her rescue. She’s granted the ability to work at her home farm and to stay with her mother who has had her manor commandeered by the army to become a hospital. Her mother volunteers for the hospital and they live in tiny West Lodge for the duration of the war. Isobel wrestles with the declared love and offer of marriage by two men, her childhood love and the kind man who rescued her and who can pay all the debts, saving the manor.
Al chafes at being a driver for his mother as his friends begin to sign up to serve. Once he turns 20, he sets his sights on the RAF, but learns that the ATA is a better fit where he can still learn to fly, but will transfer military people and goods throughout the war.
Lottie was my favorite. At first, she’s a bit annoying as she seems a bit of a brat. She wastes her grandmother’s generous gift on a lavish lifestyle in France. However, when she gets trapped in France with the host family she is staying with, we begin to see her grow up as she takes charge numerous times to help all of them to escape to Normandy where they live on a little farm. We see her grow in determination and strength as she takes on most of the farm chores and she grows in courage as she becomes part of the French Resistance with more and more danger around every corner.
The growth of Lottie’s character alone kept me wanting to read this story. The character development was fascinating. The story ends in 1941 just after the Americans joined the war, and I’m anxious to read the next book, Ivy.
As much as I loved the first book, I think I enjoyed this one even more. The story starts pre-World War II and follows the storylines of the children of Jem and Katy and Douglas and Cass. Both girls are in love with Al, but only Isobel has his attention. Lottie goes to France to get away from the pressures of being the Cheadle Manor heiress. She ignores her mother’s pleading to come home before the war begins and makes it impossible with closed borders.
From the start of the war, we begin to see some real growth in each of these characters as they each do their part for the war effort against the Nazis.
Isobel joins the Land Army and suffers under a cruel farmer who works her hard and starves her until a kind gentleman, a bit older, comes to her rescue. She’s granted the ability to work at her home farm and to stay with her mother who has had her manor commandeered by the army to become a hospital. Her mother volunteers for the hospital and they live in tiny West Lodge for the duration of the war. Isobel wrestles with the declared love and offer of marriage by two men, her childhood love and the kind man who rescued her and who can pay all the debts, saving the manor.
Al chafes at being a driver for his mother as his friends begin to sign up to serve. Once he turns 20, he sets his sights on the RAF, but learns that the ATA is a better fit where he can still learn to fly, but will transfer military people and goods throughout the war.
Lottie was my favorite. At first, she’s a bit annoying as she seems a bit of a brat. She wastes her grandmother’s generous gift on a lavish lifestyle in France. However, when she gets trapped in France with the host family she is staying with, we begin to see her grow up as she takes charge numerous times to help all of them to escape to Normandy where they live on a little farm. We see her grow in determination and strength as she takes on most of the farm chores and she grows in courage as she becomes part of the French Resistance with more and more danger around every corner.
The growth of Lottie’s character alone kept me wanting to read this story. The character development was fascinating. The story ends in 1941 just after the Americans joined the war, and I’m anxious to read the next book, Ivy.
May 4, 2020
Woodbine is fifth book of the brilliant Katherine Wheel series and, having read and enjoyed all four of the previous books I was looking forward to this one. I was not disappointed; Alex Martin has once again brought to life the characters that I followed all that time and, I have to say, I’ve been riveted by the historic detail to the background of the stories. It is obvious that the author researches extensively to portray the atmosphere of each era – and succeeds again with Woodbine.
Katy Phipps and Cassandra Flintock- Smythe are good rounded characters that have evolved over the years and have been centre stage for much of that time. The trials, the conflicts within their families as each moved in different social directions added to the tensions of the early turbulent decades of the twentieth century. It has been fascinating to see how the characters of Katy and Cassandra develop as they age.
But, in Woodbine, it is the turn of the next generation; Cassandra’s daughters, Lottie and Isobel and Katy’s son Al. Now young adults, their narrative is set against the danger and intrigues of World War Two. I try not to give spoilers in my reviews but it was obvious from the start (and remembering the relationships developing in the past) that there would be some personal conflicts within this close group of friends as they each play their part in the war: heartbreak, frustrations, anger, love, all contribute in bringing these character to life.
As always the descriptions to the action give an exceptional sense of place. The pace of the story adds to the unpredictability of countries at war with one another; moving swiftly in parts and slowing in other sections.
The plot, as with all four of the former books Katherine Wheel series, is one that carries the reader along. But there is one big difference; the denouement is more open-ended than the others; the war is still raging – and the story of these three, Al, Lottie and Isobel, is not yet finished. There is still book six to come
I highly recommend Woodbine. In fact I highly recommend the whole series and would advise any reader who likes good historical family sagas to begin at book one.
Katy Phipps and Cassandra Flintock- Smythe are good rounded characters that have evolved over the years and have been centre stage for much of that time. The trials, the conflicts within their families as each moved in different social directions added to the tensions of the early turbulent decades of the twentieth century. It has been fascinating to see how the characters of Katy and Cassandra develop as they age.
But, in Woodbine, it is the turn of the next generation; Cassandra’s daughters, Lottie and Isobel and Katy’s son Al. Now young adults, their narrative is set against the danger and intrigues of World War Two. I try not to give spoilers in my reviews but it was obvious from the start (and remembering the relationships developing in the past) that there would be some personal conflicts within this close group of friends as they each play their part in the war: heartbreak, frustrations, anger, love, all contribute in bringing these character to life.
As always the descriptions to the action give an exceptional sense of place. The pace of the story adds to the unpredictability of countries at war with one another; moving swiftly in parts and slowing in other sections.
The plot, as with all four of the former books Katherine Wheel series, is one that carries the reader along. But there is one big difference; the denouement is more open-ended than the others; the war is still raging – and the story of these three, Al, Lottie and Isobel, is not yet finished. There is still book six to come
I highly recommend Woodbine. In fact I highly recommend the whole series and would advise any reader who likes good historical family sagas to begin at book one.
April 24, 2021
Great story!
I actually read this as a stand-alone book, not realizing it was part of a series, however that did not deter the storyy.
Isobel and Charlotte are sisters living a privileged, if somewhat impoverished, life in the English countryside as WWII approaches.
The matriarch of the family dies, leaving the estate to Charlotte when she reaches age 25. This caused such strife that Charlotte, in a fit of anger, goes to Paris to visit a friend, getting stuck in France when the Germans invade. She and her friend's mother return to a small village to escape occupied Paris. Life changes dramatically for Charlotte and she ultimately begins working for the Resistance.
Meanwhile, back in England, Isobel wants to do her part and joins the Land Girls working farms.
Intertwined with the girls' stories are family and friends, old and new, to round out the story and adding to the plot. This book ends making you want to read the final book in the series.
I actually read this as a stand-alone book, not realizing it was part of a series, however that did not deter the storyy.
Isobel and Charlotte are sisters living a privileged, if somewhat impoverished, life in the English countryside as WWII approaches.
The matriarch of the family dies, leaving the estate to Charlotte when she reaches age 25. This caused such strife that Charlotte, in a fit of anger, goes to Paris to visit a friend, getting stuck in France when the Germans invade. She and her friend's mother return to a small village to escape occupied Paris. Life changes dramatically for Charlotte and she ultimately begins working for the Resistance.
Meanwhile, back in England, Isobel wants to do her part and joins the Land Girls working farms.
Intertwined with the girls' stories are family and friends, old and new, to round out the story and adding to the plot. This book ends making you want to read the final book in the series.
August 3, 2020
Family stress ,fear and tears during prewar and war period
The author has a great understanding and ability to present the family stress,loneliness ,fear and love during the Second World War.
The author has a great understanding and ability to present the family stress,loneliness ,fear and love during the Second World War.
August 20, 2020
Woodbine
I have loved all the books in the Katherine Wheel series so far so I'm sure the end of the series will be a fitting conclusion. Can't wait to read it.
I have loved all the books in the Katherine Wheel series so far so I'm sure the end of the series will be a fitting conclusion. Can't wait to read it.
December 17, 2022
I finished this series and loved each one. I could not wait to read it every chance I got. Loved the characters and really bitter sweet moments throughout.
July 7, 2022
Love this series!
Great read- again! Alex is a wonderful author. I cannot wait to read the last book! This is a great series!
Great read- again! Alex is a wonderful author. I cannot wait to read the last book! This is a great series!
July 7, 2020
I was initially a little worried by launching myself into a series with the fifth book: but while I’d obviously missed out on the earlier story and some of the background to the characters (particularly the older ones) and their relationships, I had no difficulty picking up enough of the context and moving on into the story of the next generation. And what a story – it totally swept me away, enthralling in every way with the most wonderful story-telling and the very finest of writing. This is a pretty substantial book at over 400 pages, but other than comfort breaks (when I took my kindle with me!) I didn’t surface for air until I’d read the very last page.
There were a number of elements that made this book one I really loved. I’m often a bit of a pushover for a WW2 setting, but the research that went into this book – the British home front (particularly, but not exclusively, for those used to living more comfortable lives), and the realities for the French population – must have been incredibly extensive, and it’s all wonderfully woven to bring the era so vividly to life. The sense of place throughout is exceptional – Cheadle Manor and its surroundings, the Welsh farming community where Isobel spends time as a land girl, war-torn Paris and the rural community where Lottie finds refuge. The book’s canvas is enormous – but sometimes it’s extraordinarily intimate through your degree of involvement with the fortunes of the three main characters, every one of whom you grow to really care about. And the pacing of the story is perfectly handled – quiet moments alternating with gripping sections when you really can’t read and turn the pages fast enough.
I will mention though that while the book does have an ending, the story doesn’t conclude in this book – we’re still in the midst of wartime, and there’s another book to come, drawing their individual stories and the whole series to a conclusion. I really didn’t mind that – it just made me want to read the next book even more, as I’d become totally invested in these wonderful characters. I’m not a regular reader of “sagas”, and don’t read historical fiction that often either – but from my reading of this single book I could tell that this series was something very special indeed.
(While I might have been just a tad frustrated that I couldn’t download the sixth and final book in the series and see the story through to its conclusion, you’ll be SO pleased to hear that you won’t have the same problem. I’m delighted to let you know that Ivy was published on 1st July and is now available for kindle and in paperback: I’m just trying to carve out some more reading time, because I’m desperate to read on…)
There were a number of elements that made this book one I really loved. I’m often a bit of a pushover for a WW2 setting, but the research that went into this book – the British home front (particularly, but not exclusively, for those used to living more comfortable lives), and the realities for the French population – must have been incredibly extensive, and it’s all wonderfully woven to bring the era so vividly to life. The sense of place throughout is exceptional – Cheadle Manor and its surroundings, the Welsh farming community where Isobel spends time as a land girl, war-torn Paris and the rural community where Lottie finds refuge. The book’s canvas is enormous – but sometimes it’s extraordinarily intimate through your degree of involvement with the fortunes of the three main characters, every one of whom you grow to really care about. And the pacing of the story is perfectly handled – quiet moments alternating with gripping sections when you really can’t read and turn the pages fast enough.
I will mention though that while the book does have an ending, the story doesn’t conclude in this book – we’re still in the midst of wartime, and there’s another book to come, drawing their individual stories and the whole series to a conclusion. I really didn’t mind that – it just made me want to read the next book even more, as I’d become totally invested in these wonderful characters. I’m not a regular reader of “sagas”, and don’t read historical fiction that often either – but from my reading of this single book I could tell that this series was something very special indeed.
(While I might have been just a tad frustrated that I couldn’t download the sixth and final book in the series and see the story through to its conclusion, you’ll be SO pleased to hear that you won’t have the same problem. I’m delighted to let you know that Ivy was published on 1st July and is now available for kindle and in paperback: I’m just trying to carve out some more reading time, because I’m desperate to read on…)
April 9, 2020
I very much enjoyed the Katherine Wheel series, following the fates of Katy Phipps and Cassandra Flintock Smythe at Cheadle Manor through the early decades of the 20th century, so I was delighted to find that the story continues into the next generation, with Woodbine, focussing on Katy’s son Al and Cassandra’s daughters, Lottie and Isobel. A triangle involving two young women and one young man is bound to spell trouble at any time, but the drama in this case is quadrupled by the setting of World War II. Family and friends are divided by internal disappointments and shocks, but then they are divided even more by war, with Lottie marooned in occupied France, Al determined to fly and Isobel joining the land army. The feel of the times is brilliantly conveyed, in the interminable boredom of waiting, the moments of panic and the shock of real and sometimes horrific action, all uncomfortably realistic. All aspects of the story are gripping, with Lottie especially emerging as a heroine in heart-stopping scenarios, but we are left at the height of the war, so I desperately await the next volume.
May 9, 2020
Woodbine
What a great story. Woodburn is book 5 in the series and although a good stand alone read, it is more beneficial to read the previous books to get to learn all about the families and build up to this one. It is about 2 very different sisters and their lives in the build up and during WW11 with many twists and turns. Obviously a lot of research has been done about the period which certainly comes over in the story. The end leaves you yearning for more, and I cannot wait for IVY, book 6, to be available to read
What a great story. Woodburn is book 5 in the series and although a good stand alone read, it is more beneficial to read the previous books to get to learn all about the families and build up to this one. It is about 2 very different sisters and their lives in the build up and during WW11 with many twists and turns. Obviously a lot of research has been done about the period which certainly comes over in the story. The end leaves you yearning for more, and I cannot wait for IVY, book 6, to be available to read
August 26, 2020
Book 5 another great read.
Having read the previous 4 in this series I was looking forward to continuing the story of Kate & Cassandra and their offspring. I wasn't disappointed & I was kept enthralled by their adventures.
Have already bought the final book in this series ready to start.
Having read the previous 4 in this series I was looking forward to continuing the story of Kate & Cassandra and their offspring. I wasn't disappointed & I was kept enthralled by their adventures.
Have already bought the final book in this series ready to start.
Read
August 23, 2020Woodbine is so well written that I felt like I was living with them. I felt their pain and anguish and learned so much about WWII then I had ever known. This book was so inspiring, I wish that I had started with first in this series. This book was so engaging that I never wanted to stop reading.
The Katherine Wheeler Series by Alex Martin
The Katherine Wheeler Series by Alex Martin
December 11, 2020
The series is wonderful. I do not normally read Non stop. I could NOT put the books down
Historical fiction at its best!!!! Details and excitement that keep you drawn to the next sentence. Powerful and passionate all at the same time. Love laughter and reality.
Enjoy
Historical fiction at its best!!!! Details and excitement that keep you drawn to the next sentence. Powerful and passionate all at the same time. Love laughter and reality.
Enjoy
April 24, 2022
Great Read
The 5th book in the Katherine Wheel series focuses on the younger generation and World War Two. As always the characters are well defined. Ready to start reading the last book in the series.
The 5th book in the Katherine Wheel series focuses on the younger generation and World War Two. As always the characters are well defined. Ready to start reading the last book in the series.
October 23, 2022
Cannot Put Down
Simply couldn’t stay away from this book almost desperately wanting to know what new peril and new resolution would present and unfold. Moving on two book six with excited anticipation.
Simply couldn’t stay away from this book almost desperately wanting to know what new peril and new resolution would present and unfold. Moving on two book six with excited anticipation.
May 29, 2020
What a cliffhanger !
There were some unexpected twists to book five that made it very interesting. I can’t wait to read book six!
There were some unexpected twists to book five that made it very interesting. I can’t wait to read book six!
August 10, 2020
Omg the story just gets better & better can't stop & on to read the final book!! Wish the series would never end!!!
December 9, 2020
Woodbine by Alex Martin, is the 5th in The Katherine Wheel Series”. I didn’t realize it was a series, and now I must start at the beginning. The book is the perfect combination of history (World War II), love, and family. I can’t wait to start the series at the beginning!
March 21, 2021
For some reason I thought I had read other books in this series, but I hadn’t, and wish I did. Wonderful story. Great characters, never dull, very lifelike. Wonderful book.
December 30, 2021
Enjoying all the characters in this. Series. Jumped to the next generation , but all are as interesting as the first .
June 11, 2022
Very good series.
June 8, 2022
The book starts several years after "Willow," the story of Lottie, Isobel, Al, and Lily on the water. Lottie has just graduated school, as we would say, at the top of her class and as the equivalent of senior class president, but by merit and not popularity. She is a bit at loose ends, and in love with Al, still banned by her grandmother, Lady Smythe, though Cass, Lottie, and Bella visit Katy's home/garage/petrol pump/rubber fittings factory. Isobel is home for summer vacation, and it is an unseasonably warm summer. Since she doesn't help her mother with her grandmother's care, she has more freedom and visits Al more often. She is also on love with Al.
Unlike her outgoing, take-command sister, Bella is a quiet soul, and is most happy in a garden. She tends to the kitchen garden at Cheadle Manor. She resembles Selina, the grandmother in America, long gone, who had the same ethereal beauty. Lottie resembles her maternal granmother in build and psyche, as well as in appearance.
Their mother Cass is also a tall beauty, not too dissimilar to Selina's type of beauty. It seems to Lottie that they're always a pair, excluding Lottie from their effortlessly stylish lives.
Lady Smythe is bedridden upstairs with diabetes, so heavy it takes Cass and Lottie several tries to lift her to a sitting position. Historically, insulin injections were available, due to 2 researchers who refused to allow the formula to be patented, making it what we would call in modern day software terms, "open source," available at no cost (saving the cost to make it) to anyone who needed it, and I wondwred at the omission of this option. Perhaps, with their wealth lost in the crash of 1929, and their estate mortgaged to the hilt trying to keep it afloat for those who worked on it, perhaps there was no money for it.
Lady Smythe's toes, they have learned, are gangrenous. Lottie wastes no time practically interrogating the doctors about what they will do and how, and what they will need before the surgery in her grandmother's room. They mention the smell, and when Bella visits Al, complaining of the smell and telling him about the surgery, wondering if it's necessary, Jem overhears and tells her that is how he lost his arm, and he would have died had it not been removed. As a nurse, I can verify it is a horrible smell, alin to the smell of death because it IS death. Diabetes speeds the demise of the health of the circulatory system, the heart. the eyes (Lady Smythe also has very poor vision), and as circulation is blocked to the fingers and esp. the toes first in vascular disease, the lack of circulation leads to cell death (no oxygen gets to areas where blood vessels are blocked, no nutrients get there, neither are cellular wastes and carbon dioxide removed; add to that, gangrene thrives in an area without oxygen, and you have a perfect storm for amputation...the same happens to the coronary arteries in diabetes and as they narrow, a person gers symptoms of angina first IF they're lucky, and if not, a heart attack which, back then, few survived).
Before the surgery, though, Lady Smythe speaks to each of her granddaughters in turn. First, she speaks to Lottie. Lottie receives her grandmother's tiara, and a copy of her grandmpther's will that gives Cheadle Manor solely to Lottie on her 25th birthday, and swears her to secrecy. She tells her this will mean the crippling death duties won't apply since the will is clear and they were paid on her husband, Sir Robert's, death when the girls were still very small. Then Lady Smythe tells Lottie that, frankly, Lottie is not as beautiful as her sister, and that her mother needs a rest from the worry of rinning the estate...and that Sir Robert took the running of the estate out of her hands and gave it to Cass in his will, so there is precedent for it. She says she doesn't want Lottie to have to worry about marriage, that this way, she can continue an independent lifestyle, marrying only if and when she wants to. Then she has Bella sent in. She gives Bella her sapphire necklace and earrings, and tells her she must use her beauty, and the jewels, to snag a rich husband who can bail out the estate for her mother or otherwise provide for her. Lady Smythe makes Bella promise to marry a rich man.
Lottie stays for the entire surgery, which is done in Her Ladyship's scrubbed-clean bedroom, and with Lottie setting up the items the doctor will need to amputate the gangrenous toes, and Cass comes in for the explanation of her post-operative care. After a few pain medication adjustments, Lady Smythe is doing well. She insists that Lottie read the Agatha Christie book "Murder on the Orient Express" to her once again and begs a hard candy (a "boiled sweet" in British parlance) first. Contentedly sucking on the sweet, Lady Smythe awaits the reading. At one point, she asks something about the book, and chokes on the sweet. Lottie manages to roll her over and thwacks her solidly between the shoulder blades, but the sweet doesn't dislodge and the strain of the choking causes a fatal heart attack. Lottie has the burden of having seen her grandmother die in front of her eyes. Cass is so weary that Lottie takes over callinf the undertaker to retrieve the body, and the solicitor (lawyer in American English) to read the will; Cass notified the vicar first.
But when the solicitor reads the will, Cass and Bella are enraged and even accuse Lottie of conspiring to kick them out of their home, to get all of it, because she was her grandmother's favorite.
And so Lottie is on her own for the most part, spurned by the pair who, she feels, have akways spurned her. She takes over the funeral arrangements of necessity, and acts as hostess and fills the role of lady of the manor, bearing the accusations and bitterness from soster and mother both. Never mind Lottie is heartsick about it and doesn't want it, and has said so, even begged her grandmother not to do this. Later, Lottie discovers that Bella and Al are in love, and everyone is already angry at her about the will, so she follows the advice her grandmother gave her: Go to Paris for a while, visit your pen friend, find the magic that is Paris.
And so, without hesitation, Lottie packs up to go to Paris, taking the tiara with her. It is a sudden decision as far as Al, Bella, and Cass are concerned, but as she reminds Al, she loves him but he doesn't love her, and her mother and sister have banded together in hatred of her, accusing her of wheedling the unwanted inheritance out of Lady Smythe; of lying to them while plotting behind their backs.
Not long after that, Bella decides to become a Land Girl, since she loves planting and tending gardens, but she finds that being a helper on a farm means backbreaking work. The girls are poorly fed and spied on by the lecherous farmer while dressing (they plug the walls' eyeholes with socks once they find out). The farmer, it soon becomes obvious, beats his wife. They 3 or them are loaned to a neighboring farm for a day and are fed good, hearty food. Two of them are transferred as a result; Bella ends up staying and doing the work of 3. Apparently, word has gotten out and no replacements for the 2 land girls who keft are forthcoming. One day, the farmer asks her to count the ewes in the field. She takes along her watercolors but falls asleep under the tree in the warm sun. She is wakened by the sensation of being observed, and the man watching her introduces himself as Geraint Lloyd, an amateur artist and heir to a shipping empire in Liverpool, not that far away. When he sees how thin she is and the meagre lunch she has, he shares his with her. He winkles the story of her time as a Land Girl on the decrepit farm out of her, including the defection of the other 2 girls and that there are no replacements for them as yet...also that he refuses to take in child evacuees and is a peeping tom, wife beater, and claims to be a Covenanter - a religious subset of the Church of Wales that was in the past - and to some extent in the 20th centuryb - persecuted (as were Covenanters in Scotland and England) for strict belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, and of God as the only legitimate Head of the Church, not the monarchs of any time or place in British history. They were not disloyal to the king or queen in anything but their assumed and presumed headship of the Church. Covenanters preached following the example and morals of the Bible in everyday life. They were also to participate in works of charity - none of which the farmer was doing, since he was starving Bella and having her do the work of 3 on precious little food, amd pnly became interestednin evacuees when he found out how much he'dbe paod to take them (I pity any evacuee child put in the "care" as they'd be starved and abused, most likely). While the farmer had been warned by the Land Girls' officials about underfeeding and overworking the girls, Bella had always been stuck with the farmer's false promise to reform. Finally, Bella had c9ntacted the head office for the Land Girls, going over the head of the loc office that was blithey accepting the false promises of the farmer. This time,, a proper inspection is done, and Bella gets removed. It was, Bella later discovered, Geraint who had used his influence to have the farm inspected thoroughly and Bella removed. Because of what Bella had endured, she was able to talk them into letting her help a local farmer on Cheadle land, 9ne whose sons had both enlisted. Since she had accommodations, it saved the Land Girls money. So Bella ends up back in the manor house jist bedore Christmas.
The British Army is, however, forcing the aristocracy out of their homes to make hospitals all over England, Scotland, N. Ireland, and Wales, and they have already taken over the neighboring Ponsonby's older home, scrunching the family into a few meager rooms. Bella and Cass are, however, forced completely out of their home and into the Lodge House where Katy was born and grew up. Add to that, the hospital is always demanding Cass's help at all hours.
Al could have been exempted from the draft by virtue of the family factory, which is churning our seals for gas masks, parachutes, airpl!nes, vehicles, and pretty much anything else the military needs - but Al wants to fly. He soon discovers, from.a conceited toff RAF pilot, that even if he was an excellent flyer, he would stand little chance of being an RAF pilot - but the ground crewman tells him about the ATA (Air Transport Authority), that it is recruiting, and is open to both men and women. It ferries planes and pilots wherever they're needed. Al manages to get into that and loves flying.
Over Christmas, before the Army demanded the Manor, Geraint came to visit to paint a portrait of Bella. Afterwards, when he showed it to her, he declared his love for Bella and proposed to her, promising he had enough money to save Cheadle Manor. She was, of course, hesitant. She loved Al, but she remembered her grandmother saying she should marry a rich man who would provide for her and her mother; that Lottie was unlikely to find a husband; that it was her duty to marry to save the estate. Geraint leaves her to decide. Afterwards, she got a cold that progressed to pneumonia. It took a while for her to recover, and the farmer started her off in her Land Girl duties slowly. Before Al left, he had proposed to her ‐ before Geraint visited them. She refused, saying that yes, she loved him, but no, she couldn't marry at 17, she wasn't ready yet.
One very rainy spring day, she comes home from the farm to 2 letters. One is from Geraint, and has a small watercolor of a field of wildflowers. In his letter, he tells her about the continued bombing of the Liverpool docks. Then he tells her the inspiration for the painting. Then he gently nudges her to think about his proposal; that he is not even 40 yet, and though their age difference seems big, her maturity means that it won't make that much difference...but he is more her mother's age, and at Christmas, she had hoped that, as much as Cass seemed to like Geraint, and he, her - that her mother might have a chance at a 2nd marriage to Geraint...and she is still a bit blindsided that Geraint is atrracted to her, not Cass.
Meanwhile Lottie, warned repeatedly by her mother and Françoise's family that there will soon be no way tonget back to England, she stays on, until they are proven correct. Françoise's father, who held a high position in the Citroën corporation, which was developing a new 2 stroke car to rival the Volkswagen, died when the company's huge Paris facilities were basically carpet bombed by the Nazis. The Italian chauffeur (and Françoise's mother's paramour) gone, the manservant looks to steal the car and take his girlfriend, Françoise's father's paramour (and the father of her son) away, stranding the family and Lottie. Françoise herself has gotten pregnant to a young Jewish boy, a refugee who has to leave suddenly without them. Bertrand, the manservant, is held back by his girlfriend, who wants to take the 3 women along. Lottie makes the others pack quickly as she packs herself and finishes taking as much food as they can along. On the way, they stop for a bio-break and food when the road above them is strafed by the Germans, who don't care if they kill women and children. Bertrand, who has gone for a better look, has been killed, as Lottie discovers when she has mother and pregnant daughter hide as she runs, low to the ground, after the planes have gone. They had been heading south but now, Madame drives them north to her mother's place. The grandmother is a sour older woman who is not happy to see her daughter, but the food they have helps. Mother and daughter share a room, and Lottie ends up in the attic, where the pickers stayed for seasonal work. It is a furnace in summer and a deep freeze in winter. When she helps the village teacher get the children out of harm's way, the teacher, a man who replaced the Jewish woman who had taught there before, decides to ask her to help the Resistance. She tells him she will need papers. If anyone finds out she is a British national, her life will be forfeit. She finds an unexpected ally in Bernadette, the grandmother. Mme has found herself another ticket to a luxurious life in the person of a German officer, and she takes the car in which they arrived with her. When the baby was born, they registered the dead Bertrand as the father, despite the young mother wanting to name him David, after his father, because her having a half Jewish baby meant camps and death, possibly for all of them and not just the feckless young woman. The story is that sje lost the marriage certificate on the way, 8n her grief at his death. Lottie had, for the first time ever, seen a birth - and found herself at a loss for what to do. The grandmother snaoped until she realized Lottie had no clue what happened durong a birth, and she explained things.
Sales of Bernadette's cheese, honey, and produce have fallen off sharply because of her daughter's affair with a German officer. She moves out to be with him. Lottie ends up taking eggs to the bakery, her contact with the resistance, but she also uses the eggs and produce as a way to go to other places for the resistance, getting food coupons in return.
Recently, all the guards are older, grizzled men. This happened when Germany, overconfident, broke their pact of nonaggression with Russia and declared war on them. And there is the moxed bad and good news that after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, America declared war on the Axis powers and is now involved in regular military exercises and helping the underground. The communists were so well-organized that it is easy to track them down, once they decide to help the resistance after war is declared on Russia, but the resistance never lets one person know too much so they can't betray people. The Communists, the French resisters are soon convinced, may be more of a detriment than an asset.
So it stands at the end of the book, that Al has scrawled a letter to Bella saying he loves flying, that girls are also welcome.and equal, that he loves when they can all get away to a pub, and that he is signing off because Miriam has come to get him to go to the pub. She feels betrayed; she feels the constraints her grandmother put on her to use her beauty to snag and marry a rich guy, she feels Geraint is too old for her, but Al has distanced himself from her. Lottie is still stranded in rural Normandy, France, with false papers, and has discovered, to her shock, that she has an ally in Bernadette. Françoise is too wrapped up in herself and her baby to care much aboit anything else, and the resistance is compromised by the Communists but being helped by Americans organizing communications in a way that preserves the resistance practices. Cass and Bella are living in the house in which Katy was born and grew up, along with 4 other kids and her parents, and trying to figure out how they managed. Bella is still a Land Girl on the manor's large farm, Cass helps at the hospital in their ancestral home. Al is in the ATA, enjoying himself, esp. somce the sting of Bella's not wanting to marry at 17 is still smarting. Nearly 40 year old, wealthy bachelor Geraint Lloyd also wants to marry Bella and is willing to rescue the indebted Cheadle Manor and support her mother if Bella says yes - and.her grandmother did make her promise to use her beauty to snag and marry a rich man for that purpose. Now, she feels maybe Al's love has cooled, with him on a base with the same number of female pilots as male, and writing about a girl coming to go with him to a pub, completely forgetting his earlier statement that a group of both sexes went to the pub together semi-regularly, and he's likely not the only male going, nor is the girl likely the only female going.
The story is continued in "Ivy," the last book (so far) in the series.
Unlike her outgoing, take-command sister, Bella is a quiet soul, and is most happy in a garden. She tends to the kitchen garden at Cheadle Manor. She resembles Selina, the grandmother in America, long gone, who had the same ethereal beauty. Lottie resembles her maternal granmother in build and psyche, as well as in appearance.
Their mother Cass is also a tall beauty, not too dissimilar to Selina's type of beauty. It seems to Lottie that they're always a pair, excluding Lottie from their effortlessly stylish lives.
Lady Smythe is bedridden upstairs with diabetes, so heavy it takes Cass and Lottie several tries to lift her to a sitting position. Historically, insulin injections were available, due to 2 researchers who refused to allow the formula to be patented, making it what we would call in modern day software terms, "open source," available at no cost (saving the cost to make it) to anyone who needed it, and I wondwred at the omission of this option. Perhaps, with their wealth lost in the crash of 1929, and their estate mortgaged to the hilt trying to keep it afloat for those who worked on it, perhaps there was no money for it.
Lady Smythe's toes, they have learned, are gangrenous. Lottie wastes no time practically interrogating the doctors about what they will do and how, and what they will need before the surgery in her grandmother's room. They mention the smell, and when Bella visits Al, complaining of the smell and telling him about the surgery, wondering if it's necessary, Jem overhears and tells her that is how he lost his arm, and he would have died had it not been removed. As a nurse, I can verify it is a horrible smell, alin to the smell of death because it IS death. Diabetes speeds the demise of the health of the circulatory system, the heart. the eyes (Lady Smythe also has very poor vision), and as circulation is blocked to the fingers and esp. the toes first in vascular disease, the lack of circulation leads to cell death (no oxygen gets to areas where blood vessels are blocked, no nutrients get there, neither are cellular wastes and carbon dioxide removed; add to that, gangrene thrives in an area without oxygen, and you have a perfect storm for amputation...the same happens to the coronary arteries in diabetes and as they narrow, a person gers symptoms of angina first IF they're lucky, and if not, a heart attack which, back then, few survived).
Before the surgery, though, Lady Smythe speaks to each of her granddaughters in turn. First, she speaks to Lottie. Lottie receives her grandmother's tiara, and a copy of her grandmpther's will that gives Cheadle Manor solely to Lottie on her 25th birthday, and swears her to secrecy. She tells her this will mean the crippling death duties won't apply since the will is clear and they were paid on her husband, Sir Robert's, death when the girls were still very small. Then Lady Smythe tells Lottie that, frankly, Lottie is not as beautiful as her sister, and that her mother needs a rest from the worry of rinning the estate...and that Sir Robert took the running of the estate out of her hands and gave it to Cass in his will, so there is precedent for it. She says she doesn't want Lottie to have to worry about marriage, that this way, she can continue an independent lifestyle, marrying only if and when she wants to. Then she has Bella sent in. She gives Bella her sapphire necklace and earrings, and tells her she must use her beauty, and the jewels, to snag a rich husband who can bail out the estate for her mother or otherwise provide for her. Lady Smythe makes Bella promise to marry a rich man.
Lottie stays for the entire surgery, which is done in Her Ladyship's scrubbed-clean bedroom, and with Lottie setting up the items the doctor will need to amputate the gangrenous toes, and Cass comes in for the explanation of her post-operative care. After a few pain medication adjustments, Lady Smythe is doing well. She insists that Lottie read the Agatha Christie book "Murder on the Orient Express" to her once again and begs a hard candy (a "boiled sweet" in British parlance) first. Contentedly sucking on the sweet, Lady Smythe awaits the reading. At one point, she asks something about the book, and chokes on the sweet. Lottie manages to roll her over and thwacks her solidly between the shoulder blades, but the sweet doesn't dislodge and the strain of the choking causes a fatal heart attack. Lottie has the burden of having seen her grandmother die in front of her eyes. Cass is so weary that Lottie takes over callinf the undertaker to retrieve the body, and the solicitor (lawyer in American English) to read the will; Cass notified the vicar first.
But when the solicitor reads the will, Cass and Bella are enraged and even accuse Lottie of conspiring to kick them out of their home, to get all of it, because she was her grandmother's favorite.
And so Lottie is on her own for the most part, spurned by the pair who, she feels, have akways spurned her. She takes over the funeral arrangements of necessity, and acts as hostess and fills the role of lady of the manor, bearing the accusations and bitterness from soster and mother both. Never mind Lottie is heartsick about it and doesn't want it, and has said so, even begged her grandmother not to do this. Later, Lottie discovers that Bella and Al are in love, and everyone is already angry at her about the will, so she follows the advice her grandmother gave her: Go to Paris for a while, visit your pen friend, find the magic that is Paris.
And so, without hesitation, Lottie packs up to go to Paris, taking the tiara with her. It is a sudden decision as far as Al, Bella, and Cass are concerned, but as she reminds Al, she loves him but he doesn't love her, and her mother and sister have banded together in hatred of her, accusing her of wheedling the unwanted inheritance out of Lady Smythe; of lying to them while plotting behind their backs.
Not long after that, Bella decides to become a Land Girl, since she loves planting and tending gardens, but she finds that being a helper on a farm means backbreaking work. The girls are poorly fed and spied on by the lecherous farmer while dressing (they plug the walls' eyeholes with socks once they find out). The farmer, it soon becomes obvious, beats his wife. They 3 or them are loaned to a neighboring farm for a day and are fed good, hearty food. Two of them are transferred as a result; Bella ends up staying and doing the work of 3. Apparently, word has gotten out and no replacements for the 2 land girls who keft are forthcoming. One day, the farmer asks her to count the ewes in the field. She takes along her watercolors but falls asleep under the tree in the warm sun. She is wakened by the sensation of being observed, and the man watching her introduces himself as Geraint Lloyd, an amateur artist and heir to a shipping empire in Liverpool, not that far away. When he sees how thin she is and the meagre lunch she has, he shares his with her. He winkles the story of her time as a Land Girl on the decrepit farm out of her, including the defection of the other 2 girls and that there are no replacements for them as yet...also that he refuses to take in child evacuees and is a peeping tom, wife beater, and claims to be a Covenanter - a religious subset of the Church of Wales that was in the past - and to some extent in the 20th centuryb - persecuted (as were Covenanters in Scotland and England) for strict belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, and of God as the only legitimate Head of the Church, not the monarchs of any time or place in British history. They were not disloyal to the king or queen in anything but their assumed and presumed headship of the Church. Covenanters preached following the example and morals of the Bible in everyday life. They were also to participate in works of charity - none of which the farmer was doing, since he was starving Bella and having her do the work of 3 on precious little food, amd pnly became interestednin evacuees when he found out how much he'dbe paod to take them (I pity any evacuee child put in the "care" as they'd be starved and abused, most likely). While the farmer had been warned by the Land Girls' officials about underfeeding and overworking the girls, Bella had always been stuck with the farmer's false promise to reform. Finally, Bella had c9ntacted the head office for the Land Girls, going over the head of the loc office that was blithey accepting the false promises of the farmer. This time,, a proper inspection is done, and Bella gets removed. It was, Bella later discovered, Geraint who had used his influence to have the farm inspected thoroughly and Bella removed. Because of what Bella had endured, she was able to talk them into letting her help a local farmer on Cheadle land, 9ne whose sons had both enlisted. Since she had accommodations, it saved the Land Girls money. So Bella ends up back in the manor house jist bedore Christmas.
The British Army is, however, forcing the aristocracy out of their homes to make hospitals all over England, Scotland, N. Ireland, and Wales, and they have already taken over the neighboring Ponsonby's older home, scrunching the family into a few meager rooms. Bella and Cass are, however, forced completely out of their home and into the Lodge House where Katy was born and grew up. Add to that, the hospital is always demanding Cass's help at all hours.
Al could have been exempted from the draft by virtue of the family factory, which is churning our seals for gas masks, parachutes, airpl!nes, vehicles, and pretty much anything else the military needs - but Al wants to fly. He soon discovers, from.a conceited toff RAF pilot, that even if he was an excellent flyer, he would stand little chance of being an RAF pilot - but the ground crewman tells him about the ATA (Air Transport Authority), that it is recruiting, and is open to both men and women. It ferries planes and pilots wherever they're needed. Al manages to get into that and loves flying.
Over Christmas, before the Army demanded the Manor, Geraint came to visit to paint a portrait of Bella. Afterwards, when he showed it to her, he declared his love for Bella and proposed to her, promising he had enough money to save Cheadle Manor. She was, of course, hesitant. She loved Al, but she remembered her grandmother saying she should marry a rich man who would provide for her and her mother; that Lottie was unlikely to find a husband; that it was her duty to marry to save the estate. Geraint leaves her to decide. Afterwards, she got a cold that progressed to pneumonia. It took a while for her to recover, and the farmer started her off in her Land Girl duties slowly. Before Al left, he had proposed to her ‐ before Geraint visited them. She refused, saying that yes, she loved him, but no, she couldn't marry at 17, she wasn't ready yet.
One very rainy spring day, she comes home from the farm to 2 letters. One is from Geraint, and has a small watercolor of a field of wildflowers. In his letter, he tells her about the continued bombing of the Liverpool docks. Then he tells her the inspiration for the painting. Then he gently nudges her to think about his proposal; that he is not even 40 yet, and though their age difference seems big, her maturity means that it won't make that much difference...but he is more her mother's age, and at Christmas, she had hoped that, as much as Cass seemed to like Geraint, and he, her - that her mother might have a chance at a 2nd marriage to Geraint...and she is still a bit blindsided that Geraint is atrracted to her, not Cass.
Meanwhile Lottie, warned repeatedly by her mother and Françoise's family that there will soon be no way tonget back to England, she stays on, until they are proven correct. Françoise's father, who held a high position in the Citroën corporation, which was developing a new 2 stroke car to rival the Volkswagen, died when the company's huge Paris facilities were basically carpet bombed by the Nazis. The Italian chauffeur (and Françoise's mother's paramour) gone, the manservant looks to steal the car and take his girlfriend, Françoise's father's paramour (and the father of her son) away, stranding the family and Lottie. Françoise herself has gotten pregnant to a young Jewish boy, a refugee who has to leave suddenly without them. Bertrand, the manservant, is held back by his girlfriend, who wants to take the 3 women along. Lottie makes the others pack quickly as she packs herself and finishes taking as much food as they can along. On the way, they stop for a bio-break and food when the road above them is strafed by the Germans, who don't care if they kill women and children. Bertrand, who has gone for a better look, has been killed, as Lottie discovers when she has mother and pregnant daughter hide as she runs, low to the ground, after the planes have gone. They had been heading south but now, Madame drives them north to her mother's place. The grandmother is a sour older woman who is not happy to see her daughter, but the food they have helps. Mother and daughter share a room, and Lottie ends up in the attic, where the pickers stayed for seasonal work. It is a furnace in summer and a deep freeze in winter. When she helps the village teacher get the children out of harm's way, the teacher, a man who replaced the Jewish woman who had taught there before, decides to ask her to help the Resistance. She tells him she will need papers. If anyone finds out she is a British national, her life will be forfeit. She finds an unexpected ally in Bernadette, the grandmother. Mme has found herself another ticket to a luxurious life in the person of a German officer, and she takes the car in which they arrived with her. When the baby was born, they registered the dead Bertrand as the father, despite the young mother wanting to name him David, after his father, because her having a half Jewish baby meant camps and death, possibly for all of them and not just the feckless young woman. The story is that sje lost the marriage certificate on the way, 8n her grief at his death. Lottie had, for the first time ever, seen a birth - and found herself at a loss for what to do. The grandmother snaoped until she realized Lottie had no clue what happened durong a birth, and she explained things.
Sales of Bernadette's cheese, honey, and produce have fallen off sharply because of her daughter's affair with a German officer. She moves out to be with him. Lottie ends up taking eggs to the bakery, her contact with the resistance, but she also uses the eggs and produce as a way to go to other places for the resistance, getting food coupons in return.
Recently, all the guards are older, grizzled men. This happened when Germany, overconfident, broke their pact of nonaggression with Russia and declared war on them. And there is the moxed bad and good news that after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, America declared war on the Axis powers and is now involved in regular military exercises and helping the underground. The communists were so well-organized that it is easy to track them down, once they decide to help the resistance after war is declared on Russia, but the resistance never lets one person know too much so they can't betray people. The Communists, the French resisters are soon convinced, may be more of a detriment than an asset.
So it stands at the end of the book, that Al has scrawled a letter to Bella saying he loves flying, that girls are also welcome.and equal, that he loves when they can all get away to a pub, and that he is signing off because Miriam has come to get him to go to the pub. She feels betrayed; she feels the constraints her grandmother put on her to use her beauty to snag and marry a rich guy, she feels Geraint is too old for her, but Al has distanced himself from her. Lottie is still stranded in rural Normandy, France, with false papers, and has discovered, to her shock, that she has an ally in Bernadette. Françoise is too wrapped up in herself and her baby to care much aboit anything else, and the resistance is compromised by the Communists but being helped by Americans organizing communications in a way that preserves the resistance practices. Cass and Bella are living in the house in which Katy was born and grew up, along with 4 other kids and her parents, and trying to figure out how they managed. Bella is still a Land Girl on the manor's large farm, Cass helps at the hospital in their ancestral home. Al is in the ATA, enjoying himself, esp. somce the sting of Bella's not wanting to marry at 17 is still smarting. Nearly 40 year old, wealthy bachelor Geraint Lloyd also wants to marry Bella and is willing to rescue the indebted Cheadle Manor and support her mother if Bella says yes - and.her grandmother did make her promise to use her beauty to snag and marry a rich man for that purpose. Now, she feels maybe Al's love has cooled, with him on a base with the same number of female pilots as male, and writing about a girl coming to go with him to a pub, completely forgetting his earlier statement that a group of both sexes went to the pub together semi-regularly, and he's likely not the only male going, nor is the girl likely the only female going.
The story is continued in "Ivy," the last book (so far) in the series.
September 11, 2021
Woodbine
The book & series is well written and very well researched. The author has carefully researched the times and places and history of these novels and made them an interesting read.
The book & series is well written and very well researched. The author has carefully researched the times and places and history of these novels and made them an interesting read.
January 3, 2021
Intriguingly fabulous
This is the 5th book of the series and just absolutely loving it can't wait to get on to book 6 can highly recommend this authors fabulous books.
This is the 5th book of the series and just absolutely loving it can't wait to get on to book 6 can highly recommend this authors fabulous books.
April 17, 2020
BRILLIANT SERIES
This is Book 5 in the series and carries on with the next generation of Katy and Cassandra, both ladies from different spectrum of the social classes have a deep and abiding friendship.
Now their children are grown and are now encountering WWII.
Surprises of inheritance, a love triangle, and the turmoil of a world war.
I’ve read all the previous books and would advice a reader to start with the first book so that they get the full impact of these two families.
Well written, well researched.
Although this book ends unresolved Book Six is awaited with bated breath to see what happens to the Al, Lottie and Isobel especially as they are in the middle of the war.
This is Book 5 in the series and carries on with the next generation of Katy and Cassandra, both ladies from different spectrum of the social classes have a deep and abiding friendship.
Now their children are grown and are now encountering WWII.
Surprises of inheritance, a love triangle, and the turmoil of a world war.
I’ve read all the previous books and would advice a reader to start with the first book so that they get the full impact of these two families.
Well written, well researched.
Although this book ends unresolved Book Six is awaited with bated breath to see what happens to the Al, Lottie and Isobel especially as they are in the middle of the war.
September 3, 2020
Very good WW2 action. Recommended. First I had heard about land girls was in this book then I found a Netflix series on them too.
April 23, 2022
Love
Love this series. Book 5 is really
hard to put down! The name of the series is the only thing that has disappointed me.
Love this series. Book 5 is really
hard to put down! The name of the series is the only thing that has disappointed me.
August 24, 2021
Brief synopsis from the book cover:
Lottie, her sister Isobel and Al, the man they both love, are on the brink of adulthood and the Second World War in Woodbine, the fifth book in The Katherine Wheel Series.
Trapped and alone in occupied France, Lottie must disguise her identity and avoid capture if she is to return and heal the bitter feud over the future of Cheadle Manor.
Back in England, Al is determined to prove himself. He joins the Air Transport Auxiliary service, flying aeroplanes to RAF bases all over the country.
Isobel defies everyone’s expectations by becoming a land girl. Bound by a promise to a dying woman, she struggles to break free and follow her heart.
My rating:
Plot: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Character development: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Recommended for readers of:
Historical Fiction
Review:
This book tells the story of the sisters Isobel and Charlotte as they come of age on the eve of the Second World War. Inheritance and love for the same boy causes a split that puts them on two different paths.
This is book five in the Katherine Wheel Series. Unlike the first book in series which can be read as a standalone as the story is nicely concluded at the end of the book. This one has an open ending and finishes midway through the plot without a real conclusion so you have to get the next book if you want to know what happens to the characters.
Overall:
This book is nicely written and well researched, the time setting during WWII England and occupied French felt authentic. The characters were interesting, their personalities were well developed you felt, their despair, hope, disappointment and courage. The plot flowed well with the right of amount of suspense, intrigue, sorrow and a bit of romance. This made the book interesting till the last page.
Lottie, her sister Isobel and Al, the man they both love, are on the brink of adulthood and the Second World War in Woodbine, the fifth book in The Katherine Wheel Series.
Trapped and alone in occupied France, Lottie must disguise her identity and avoid capture if she is to return and heal the bitter feud over the future of Cheadle Manor.
Back in England, Al is determined to prove himself. He joins the Air Transport Auxiliary service, flying aeroplanes to RAF bases all over the country.
Isobel defies everyone’s expectations by becoming a land girl. Bound by a promise to a dying woman, she struggles to break free and follow her heart.
My rating:
Plot: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Character development: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Recommended for readers of:
Historical Fiction
Review:
This book tells the story of the sisters Isobel and Charlotte as they come of age on the eve of the Second World War. Inheritance and love for the same boy causes a split that puts them on two different paths.
This is book five in the Katherine Wheel Series. Unlike the first book in series which can be read as a standalone as the story is nicely concluded at the end of the book. This one has an open ending and finishes midway through the plot without a real conclusion so you have to get the next book if you want to know what happens to the characters.
Overall:
This book is nicely written and well researched, the time setting during WWII England and occupied French felt authentic. The characters were interesting, their personalities were well developed you felt, their despair, hope, disappointment and courage. The plot flowed well with the right of amount of suspense, intrigue, sorrow and a bit of romance. This made the book interesting till the last page.
August 8, 2020
Growing up in world war two
Excellent clean book,enjoying reading about England & France during the war. My parents lived during world war two in Kansas & Oklahoma. They married after the war, so many stories. I will have to get book 6 to see how it ends. Bless you
Excellent clean book,enjoying reading about England & France during the war. My parents lived during world war two in Kansas & Oklahoma. They married after the war, so many stories. I will have to get book 6 to see how it ends. Bless you
August 30, 2020
Disappointed!
I was deeply disappointed in the way this book ended. I did not realize it was a series of books and the ending is in another book. I did enjoy the story but will not read another book to learn what happened.
I was deeply disappointed in the way this book ended. I did not realize it was a series of books and the ending is in another book. I did enjoy the story but will not read another book to learn what happened.
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