Rosie Gardiner is having a tough war. She’s had to leave her job as a nude at the Windmill in Soho after a horrific assault which left her pregnant, and is now living back at home with her recently remarried dad. Despite her best efforts, Rosie and her dad just can’t get along and the strain of coping as a young unmarried mother is getting to her.
As the Nazis strafe the city with V2 bombs, Rosie is determined to keep her head up through the Blitz but when a direct hit to her street cripples her father, it feels like the days have never been darker. With a final burst of resolution, John Gardiner decides to leave London to escape the bombardment and to Rosie’s mixed horror and relief, he takes her baby with him. Left alone in the East End, with the spectre of the man who assaulted her rearing his ugly head, Rosie decides to join the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service to keep her busy – and to give her hope in these tough times.
Kay Brellend, the third of six children, was born in North London but now lives in a Victorian farmhouse in Suffolk. Under a pseudonym she has written sixteen historical novels published in England and North America. Her novels are inspired by her grandmother’s reminiscences about her early life growing up in Islington.