Book - Birmingham Blitz by Annie Murray

The author has a strong habit of taking the reader to the heart of the action. Birmingham Blitz brings you in so deeply the ground shakes as the bombs hit, your heart hurts as another lost one is pulled from under the rubble and your smile widens when there is a glimmer of hope amongst the chaos of war.

Actually, the bombs arrive late in the story. There is first a wait for the war to start and then for it to come to England. Birmingham Blitz is dominated by women - as all of Murray’s books are - as the men are mostly serving in the forces. 

Because the real world has changed so much in the last few years and poverty levels have risen, I was reluctant to read a fictional account of poverty. However, this is the first of the author’s books that isn’t about abject poverty. Everyone is working so money is not short and supplies are only beginning to be rationed. Genie’s nan still looks in the slums but her house and shop have everything that is needed and Genie herself lives in a house with her mum, dad and brother, having lost their much-reviled grandmother in the opening pages. 

I am so pleased to find an active author that has captivated me with a back catalogue of historical fiction plus a new book published every few years. Annie Murray is an author I can turn to every year to read about the people who lived on the streets I now walk on.