The Light Over London

Cara is an antiques dealer just learning the ropes. She finds some old love letters and this leads her to investigate the past. She discovers Louise. Louise is bound and determined to change her stars. Her mother wants her to wait for her rich boyfriend to come home from the war. Louise wants more out of life than that! Enter Paul Bolton, a larger than life Fight Lieutenant. He sweeps her off her feet. She decides to join the British Army where she is trained as a gunner girl. Their love letters keep her going, until they just stop.

If you follow my reviews, you know I love strong women characters. Both Cara and Louise fit this to a “T”. Louise is unstoppable in her quest to help in the war effort. She does not intend to mend socks show more for the service men. She wants to be in the middle of the action. Cara is just as tenacious. Her grandmother is keeping a secret about her time in the war. And Cara is determined to find out more.

This story has a little bit of everything. Family drama, love, mystery, action, just to name a few. Parts of this tale are purely magical. When Paul takes Louise into smugglers cave, I could just feel their connection. I fell in love with Paul …glad it was not in real life…I would have been hoodwinked. (Sorry spoiler alert).

Well, well, well, this author taught me something. I knew women were nurses, ambulance drivers, spies and more in WWII. But, I have never heard of gunner girls or ‘ack ack’ girls. These ladies helped with the anti aircraft guns. How have I missed this! These ladies were so brave.

To say I loved this read is an understatement. This is a fantastic, awesome novel. I ended 2018 with a bang! I would rate this one in my top five of 2018. Read this TODAY! show less

This is not the sort of book I would usually pick up. There is a historical war time romance story and I prefer contemporary books. But once I started, I found myself pulled into the story and I ended up really enjoying it.

The book interweaves the story on Cara, an antique dealer in the present day, with that of Louise, a young woman who runs off to join the war effort in 1941. There are some similarities between the two woman. Both woman are unlucky in love and feel they will never meet the man of their dreams. You know what happens next. Cara meets her new neighbor and finds an attraction there. Louise meets a young pilot at a dance and begins a romance with him. I was hoping for both women to find love and was interested to see how show more Louise's life would turn out.

The book moved along at a nice pace and I was never bored reading it. The chapters alternated between each woman's point of view. That is not my favorite way to tell a story, but I enjoyed the book enough that it didn't bother me to much. I would recommend this book, especially for fans of war time romances.

I received a free ARC from the publisher through a goodreads giveaway in exchange for my honest opinion. show less

In the modern period, Cara discovers a diary written by a woman who served on a special assignment as a gunner during World War II. In the older story, we see how the woman who wrote the diary (Louise) joined up to escape an oppressive mother. She falls in love with RAF pilot she met at a dance she attended with a cousin. I'm not sure why so many people ruin a good story by using dual timelines. I found the older story the most fascinating although there is plenty of stuff that might attract some to the modern one. I listened to the audiobook.

There are two parallel stories in this one. Cara works for an antiques dealer and, while looking through someone’s estate, she discovers an old diary hidden away; she is given permission to take it and try to find out to whom it belonged. It attracted her attention because there was a photo of a young woman in an RAF uniform, and Cara’s grandmother had also been part of the Royal Air Force during the war. In fact, Cara’s grandmother won’t talk about the war, and Cara desperately wants to hear about it.

In the diary, Louise lives in a small town and her mother expects her to marry a nice boy, Gary, who has gone to war. When she meets the charming Paul at a dance, she falls hard for him, but due to a fallout at home, she leaves show more and joins the army, where she ends up being one of the very few “Ack-Ack Girls” or “Gunner Girls”, helping with anti-aircraft guns.

I really liked this. Initially, I liked both stories equally well, but as it continued, I did prefer Louise’s story. There were some twists at the end, though I did figure out one of Cara’s Gran’s twists. The Ack-Ack Girls were a part of WWII that I didn’t know anything about, so it was interesting to read about. show less

I'm a huge fan of dual timeline books AND of WWII fiction, so this book ticked all the boxes for me: historical fiction, romance, compelling characters - AND I learned a bit more with the Gunner Girl storyline.
While Cara's present day story was interesting, it was the WWII setting and Louise Keene's storyline that really sucked me in. She was a strong and pretty complex character, and the author paints a vivid (and bleak) picture of life both in Cornwall and London.

Strong women, secrets, the perils of war time romance - this book was hard to put down.

Partly set in WWII-era England and partly in contemporary Britain, this novel tells the story of two women seeking to find their own paths. I really enjoyed the WWII storyline and particularly learning about the teams of anti-aircraft gunners that women were a part of. This is definitely one of the lesser-told tales of a war that has plenty written about it. This novel was like a glass of my favorite wine, rich and dynamic and perfect for a Saturday evening.

Gosh, I liked this historical. Told in split timelines as in the present day, Kara discovers a diary detailing a WW2 wartime romance, and back in 1941 England, Louise falls in love with an airman, and joins the military branch where women are allowed to serve, becoming a “gunner girl”, this was a page turner once we got a few chapters in. I will confess to being mostly captivated by Louise’s timeline as that’s where most of the action was. Louise was a delightful, relatable character, so wonderfully drawn, and I found myself eagerly wishing to know what happened next in her journey. It was the perfect blend of wartime details, personal struggles and friendships.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.