After many months of only half-talking about it, I’m very proud to say that I’m ready to announce my next book, The Lost English Girl!
Set during and just after World War 2, this book follows the story of three people: Viv, Joshua, and their daughter Maggie. It’s a novel that’s particularly close to my heart because a true story from my own family inspired it. It’s also set in Liverpool, my mother’s hometown and a proud city with its own stories of World War 2, many of which are still waiting to be told.
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 of Liverpool 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. However, 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
On the eve of World War II, Viv is forced with the impossible choice to evacuate her young daughter, Maggie, who will stay with the Thompsons, affluent strangers who live in the safety of the countryside. 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 eighteen for dreams that never came to be. However, tragedy strikes when Viv learns that the countryside safe haven she went her daughter to isn’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.
Make sure you don’t miss out by pre-ordering your copy of The Lost English Girl wherever books are sold!