I really enjoy Jean Fullerton's Ration Book series and this latest is just as good. Ration Book Daughter concentrates on Cathy, the youngest of the Brogan daughters. Unhappily married to a violent and non-patriotic conscripted man she concentrates on creating a happy life for her young son, even while living with her mother-in-law. Latching onto hope when her husband is declared missing in action she begins to find the courage to stand up for herself and plan for a new future when she will be officially declared a widow in six months time. A new future that includes a half-caste lodger from the Royal Engineers' Bomb Squad.
What I like about Jean Fullerton's books is that she blends the characters lives so well with the background of the war in the East End She's teaching us about the social life, the morality, the snobbishness, the racism of this time and at the same time giving us the lives of not just the Brogan family but the people they know and work with and trying to survive alongside. She doesn't do super-dramatic incidents just for the sake of them because these are just ordinary people living in extraordinary times.
What I like about Jean Fullerton's books is that she blends the characters lives so well with the background of the war in the East End She's teaching us about the social life, the morality, the snobbishness, the racism of this time and at the same time giving us the lives of not just the Brogan family but the people they know and work with and trying to survive alongside. She doesn't do super-dramatic incidents just for the sake of them because these are just ordinary people living in extraordinary times.