Four super sagas for long spring evenings by various authors – book reviews –

The Queen’s Coronation

Jennifer Ryan

As Queen Elizabeth II prepares for the Coronation, a spectacular event that will mark out the rest of her days, three other young women are also looking to find their own way in an ever-changing world.

Former non-fiction books editor Jennifer Ryan – who has now found success writing fiction –transports readers back in time to the busy months before the Queen took the throne where we meet three women whose work at Buckingham Palace is the springboard for what they hope will be a better future.

There’s a lot to get done ahead of the queen’s coronation in the early months of 1953… and even more so when your livelihood is at stake. Young, naïve and ambitious, Lucy Jones is a junior wardrobe assistant who dreams of being a famous singer, so when she meets a handsome, wealthy man at the palace who promises her future stardom, she cannot help but fall for his charms.

Caroline Brimstone, meanwhile, loves her role as the queen’s Assistant Dresser but behind closed doors she is struggling with a husband who gambles away their money, and is constantly fighting for a better life for herself and her daughter. On a trip to Balmoral in Scotland, Caroline meets a man from her past who is everything that she longs for and could be her key to a new and better future.

And then there’s Miranda Miller, an undercover journalist from America who is working as a temporary secretary with the Coronation Office’s planning committee and is secretly gathering information for an inside scoop on the royal occasion and could be the key to keeping her job… the only thing she has left.

But they are all running away from their own demons and, in order to succeed, they must shed their feelings of shame, trust themselves, and be brave enough to reclaim their lives. As Queen Elizabeth takes the throne and a new era begins, will the three women learn to join forces, find new strength, and build their own future?

The Queen's Coronation is a heartwarming tale of female resilience and friendship as the three palace workers meet the challenges that still existed for many women in the 1950s and find the courage to fight for the future they want rather than the one that society expects of them.

Using the drama, chaos and excitement of the months leading up to the Coronation, Ryan blends fact and fiction into an emotion-packed exploration of not just the start of a queen’s groundbreaking reign but ordinary women finding their feet at an equally life-changing crossroads in their lives. A right royal treat!

(Pan, paperback, £9.99)

Celebrations at the Toffee Factory

Glenda Young

Over four years of war have finally ended and three friends, whose lives have been scarred by hardship, uncertainty and upheaval, hope for better days in the dramatic last chapter of a heartwarming trilogy from one of today’s most exciting saga writers.

Set against the fascinating backdrop of a toffee factory in Chester-le-Street in County Durham during the First World War, the Toffee Factory trilogy comes from Glenda Young who lives near Sunderland and has won an army of fans who have followed the fortunes of a group of likeable women encountering everything from romance and tragedy to secrets and lies.

The Great War might have ended but Jack’s toffee factory is struggling after years of sugar rations and its troubles are far from over. Fun, feisty Elsie longs for freedom and excitement. Hoping to meet the man of her dreams, she spurns the attention of dependable Stan. Will she realise that what she wants and what she needs are different things?

Efficient Anne takes control at the factory to change its fortunes after the war and creates a new line of toffee. However, an unwelcome blast from Mr Jack’s past could jeopardise the factory’s success. And Hetty is torn when her sweetheart Dirk prepares to leave for his home town in Belgium. At the same time, her old boyfriend Bob returns from the Front, determined to marry her. Who will Hetty choose? As the toffee factory girls celebrate the end of the war, they are more determined than ever to face the future with courage and hope.

Using her local knowledge and her eye for the ups and downs facing a small, close-knit community, Young creates an authentic and richly colourful portrait of life both in and immediately after the Great War. With drama at every turn and a cast of beautifully drawn characters, readers will love getting their teeth into this last date with the unforgettable toffee factory girls.

(Headline, paperback, £8.99)

A Woman of Spirit

Margaret Dickinson

Born within a month of each, Molly and Queenie have been the best of friends since their schooldays but when they both fall for lovable rogue Harry Spencer, their close relationship will be tested to the limit.

Margaret Dickinson – a writer who had her first novel published at the age of 25 and has since gone on to pen a raft of bestselling sagas – is on fine form as she brings us a gritty and heart-rending tale of unrequited love set against the fears, suspicions and uncertainties of the First World War.

In June of 1912 in Leicestershire, all the girls notice startlingly handsome Harry Spencer… with his shiny black hair and brown eyes full of mischief, the girls in the neighbourhood battle to ‘walk out’ with him or even just talk to him.

Molly and Queenie are no different but Molly knows she fades into insignificance at the side of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Queenie who seems to make everyone look twice at her. It breaks Molly’s heart to see Queenie flirting with Harry but she quickly turns her mind to the Suffragette movement, finding solace and passion in helping their cause.

Inevitably, the girls’ friendship becomes strained and when war breaks out in 1914, the local community starts to hear rumours that Molly has been delivering white feathers, a symbol of cowardice, and she is cast out by everyone she holds dear. In times of despair, can Molly hold on to hope and prove the truth that is in her heart?

Dickinson is a born storyteller who knows how to immerse her readers in the past and a forgotten way of life, and in her emotion-packed new romance, she brings us a torrid tale filled with heartache, courage and page-turning drama. Written with the author’s signature warmth and insight, A Woman of Spirit delivers the kind of rich period detail that brings the past and its people to vibrant life. A delight for all saga fans!

(Macmillan, hardback, £22)

Hay Bales and Hollyhocks

Sheila Newberry

A young girl’s idyllic life in the Cambridge Fenlands is changed forever when her family moves to the Norfolk countryside, just as the country is about to be plunged into the upheaval of the Second World War, in a heart-warming saga from Sheila Newberry.

Newberry, the Suffolk-born author who died in 2020, knew a thing or two about the ups and downs of family life. A mother of nine children, and with twenty-two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, this much-loved writer left a legacy of nostalgic sagas – including this page-turner previously published as Our Cousin Rosanna – which have enthralled readers across the decades.

In Hay Bales and Hollyhocks, we are transported back to the Fens in 1938 where little Rosanna is part of a close-knit family and the youngest of three cousins. In a time of childhood abandon and with adventures to enjoy on the waterways, life couldn’t be more perfect for her.

But things are not always as they seem and when Rosanna’s new baby brother Russ is born, tragedy strikes the family. To make matters worse, the outbreak of World War Two is just around the corner and when the family moves to the Norfolk countryside, Rosanna is torn from the life she loves. But as she and the other young family members grow up together, she realises that to find happiness, we sometimes have to break away from the things we know.

Full of rich period detail and nostalgia, and written with Newberry’s natural empathy and insight into what it meant to live through times of upheaval and personal challenges, this gently uplifting story is a saga to savour.

(Zaffre, paperback, £9.99)