disclosure: sent for review
It’s hard to believe that it’s two years since I discovered Pocketful of Dreams by Jean Fullerton. I’ve just finished A Ration Book Childhood, which was published on 3rd October through Corvus, and it’s brought me up to date with the latest news of the Brogan family in London’s East End during World War Two.
We meet up with the Brogan’s just over two years into the Second World War. It’s October and with rationing hitting everyone hard, the family are already thinking of how they can make Christmas special this year. The nightly bombing raids are taking their toll on everyone but Ida is keeping her family together. That’s until an old friend called Ellen comes back into her life and turns everything she knows upside down.
Ellen has been keeping a secret, and now she’s terminally ill, she has to share it with Ida and her family. But this news blows the once rock-solid family apart and Ida must decide if she can forgive the man she loves above all others for the sake of a young innocent child.
In A Ration Book Childhood, two of the daughter’s are coping with their husbands being involved in the war, and the family are dealing with Stella, wife of Charlie, who leaves Ida to look after her grandson at every opportunity. She’s always dolled up to the nines and one day her own secret is uncovered, she’s working in a strip club and really has no feelings for her husband at all.
There are lots of twists and turns as well follow the lives of the various family members and you really get a sense of what life must have been like at that time with A Ration Book Childhood. The book is beautifully written and you can really relate to the characters. I can thoroughly recommend.
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