The acclaimed author of the "sweeping and beautifully written novel"
(Woman's World) The Light Over London weaves an epic saga of love,
motherhood, and betrayal set against World War II.
Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows
what's expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class
neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself
pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of
becoming a famous Jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the
only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping
her strict mother's scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing
choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of
her disapproving family.
Five years later and on the eve of World War II, Viv is faced with the
impossible choice to evacuate her young daughter, Maggie, to the
countryside estate of the affluent Thompson family. In New York City,
Joshua gives up his failing musical career to serve in the Royal Air
Force, fight for his country, and try to piece together his feelings
about the family, wife, and daughter he left behind at nineteen.
However, tragedy strikes when Viv learns that the countryside safe haven
she sent her daughter to wasn't immune from the horrors of war. It is
only years later, with Joshua's help, that Viv learns the secrets of
their shared past and what it will take to put a family back together
again.
Telling the harrowing story of England's many evacuated children,
bestselling author Julia Kelly's The Lost English Girl explores how
one simple choice can change the course of a life, and what we are
willing to forgive to find a way back to the ones we love and thought
lost.
