The Light Over London by Julia Kelly
Are you into a bit of romance combined
with a bit of history? If you are, Julia Kelly’s 2019 entry titled The
Light Over London might be up your alley. It is a part of an
entertaining and instructive genre that has recently produced a number of novels
about women’s roles in the second world war. Jacqueline Winspear has dealt with
female pilots, for instance and others have dealt with women code breakers at
Bletchley Park and women’s service in intelligence. Some of the most courageous
even parachuted into France to work with the resistance.
Kelly has hitched her star to this market by writing about the “ack ack” women
who became part of anti-aircraft gun crews in London and other English cities. If
you have not heard of these young volunteer patriots, you will get a full
measure of enjoyment from the history alone. And if you like some romance you can settle
comfortably into the love affairs of two women from two different times and
backgrounds.
Louise Keene, a sheltered young village
girl, is swept off her feet by Paul, a dashing young spitfire pilot in the WW II
Brit Air Force. To do her part in the war effort, she joins the women’s
auxiliary of the British Army and her training reveals an expertise in maths
that earns her an assignment to an anti-aircraft gun crew. At the same time she
also begins a diary that records her feelings, her letters, and her beloved
Paul’s responses.
Sixty years later, Cara Hargraves, a
recently divorced woman working for an antique business, finds a tin box that contains
old memorabilia and Louise Keene’s unfinished WW II diary. Cara is
fascinated by the find and embarks on a search to learn more about the diarist
and the described love affair. Conveniently, Cara also has a single male
neighbor who offers to help in the search.
From here on the book alternates chapters
between Cara’s investigation in the present and Louise’s experiences from the
past. The fairly traditional gimmick to integrate the two stories seemed a bit arbitrary to me and
the sexual sizzle remained resolutely
within the “cosy” genre guidelines.
But, overall, the material on the training and lives of the "gunner"
girls was engaging and historically informative. I had never heard of these
women. They were prohibited from engaging in combat, but they could do
everything to aim and prepare the guns to fire except pull the actual trigger.
It is not at all surprising to learn that a fair number of them were killed or
injured while serving their country.
This is not a great book by any
stretch of the imagination, but it retains enough bang for your proverbial buck
to give it a try. I give it a 3.5 out of 5
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