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A Novel
by Annie Lyons
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett comes a heartwarming story of found family, love, and making connections through books set against the bombing of London during WWII.
London, 1938: The bookstore just doesn't feel the same to Gertie Bingham ever since the death of her beloved husband Harry. Bingham Books was a dream they shared together, and without Harry, Gertie wonders if it's time to take her faithful old lab, Hemingway, and retire to the seaside. But fate has other plans for Gertie.
In Germany, Hitler is on the rise, and Jewish families are making the heart-wrenching decision to send their children away from the growing turmoil. After a nudge from her dear friend Charles, Gertie decides to take in one of these refugees, a headstrong teenage girl named Hedy. Willful and fearless, Hedy reminds Gertie of herself at the same age, and shows her that she can't give up just yet. With the terrible threat of war on the horizon, the world needs people like Gertie Bingham and her bookshop.
When the Blitz begins and bombs whistle overhead, Gertie and Hedy come up with the idea to start an air raid book club. Together with neighbors and bookstore customers, they hold lively discussions of everything from Winnie the Pooh to Wuthering Heights. After all, a good book can do wonders to bolster people's spirits, even in the most trying times.
But even the best book can only provide a temporary escape, and as the tragic reality of the war hits home, the book club faces unimaginable losses. They will need all the strength of their stories and the bonds they've formed to see them through to brighter days.
"Lyons (The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett, 2020) engages readers with her well-developed characters and a dash of humor. Fans of Lisa Wingate and Madeline Martin will appreciate this uplifting story about a neighborhood banding together to support one another during the Blitz." —Booklist
"The Air Raid Book Club is a warm and tender tale about the power and healing of friendship and community and the magic of books. A diverse cast of characters are drawn together through Gertie and her bookshop, and in the face of all the fear and uncertainty that war brings they find strength in unity, and escape and solace in books. Annie writes her characters with humanity, humour and respect and their stories will stay with me for a very long time. A wonderful, heart-warming read." —Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things
"Annie Lyons has the rare gift of bringing an unfamiliar world alive in such a way that the reader drops right into the heart of the action....This is a book to be read and re-read—each time there will be something new to discover. It is a triumph of celebrating the touching but mundane happenings along with the more dramatic events of wartime." —Celia Anderson, USA Today bestselling author
This information about The Air Raid Book Club was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
After a career in bookselling and publishing, Annie Lyons published numerous books in the U.K. and The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett in the U.S. When not working on her novels, she teaches creative writing. She lives in south-east London with her husband and two children.
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