Kitty, an orphaned young woman, works to gain her Red Cross qualification as she continues to work as a nurse during World War Two.
I picked up this ARC on NetGalley a while ago, and came to realize sometime after that that WW2 historical fiction is generally not for me. I enjoy learning about the time period and the experiences of ordinary people, but I find that the plots zigzag between melodramatic and dull too much for my liking. But my NetGalley shelf needs to be cleared, and so I took the plunge.
This is the second book in the Red Cross Orphans series. I read the first as this book was hard to get into otherwise, and gave it three stars. As such, I was really disappointed in this book. Part of the trouble might be that this doesn’t seem to have been a planned sequel, and so the author might have been searching around for a plot.
Kitty works in Cornwall for the majority of this book, and continues to have a hectic schedule as a nurse in wartime Britain. The author is good at conveying the stress that she is under, and the painful uncertainty that she and her countrymen face on a day to day basis. The author also did a better job of adding nuance to the behavior of secondary characters, even if she remained very heavy-handed with their depiction.
However, I found the plot meandering, especially in the second half as Kitty begins dashing about the country in earnest. The pacing was odd, with months and months flashing by without much remark, and subplots being wrapped up in a few cursory paragraphs and then never mentioned again. What really ruined the book for me, though, was the way it ended. The romance with Michael has been a major component of the series, and so to end the book on such a final pessimistic note in that area was really frustrating. There’s such a thing as being too true to life, I think!
Do not recommend.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.