A Daughter’s Hope: Book 3 in the Yorkshire Blitz Trilogy
Douglas focuses primarily on twin sisters Maudie and Sybil Maguire in the city of Hull, who have joined the WAAFs in the Second World War. The sisters discover that the differences in their personalities are more acutely obvious in this strange new environment and what they could ignore before is now a barrier to their individual happiness. Relationships with their colleagues and the opposite sex throw an additional emotional charge into the mix, which threatens the cosy friendship they thought was theirs unconditionally. Meanwhile, back at their home on Jubilee Row, their aunt Florence faces her own nemesis. At the office she is professionally challenged as she supervises the skittish young women of the typing pool while struggling with the inadequacies of the office manager, who is unsuited to his role. Florence finds it tough to fit in at home, too, since she’s more interested in a good book over dancing the night away. She’s pursued her career following the loss of her fiancé in World War One and feels that she is destined to remain unmarried and different from the other women in the Maguire family.
Learning about the tough decisions that women of every age had to make during the War, through the medium of fiction, allows their challenges to become more accessible. The generation of grandmothers had been influenced by the Victorian values of their parents, whilst the emerging adults were able to enjoy freedoms that were unthought of for their elders. The middle years brought their own difficulties as many of these women were vital to the workforce, much depleted due to their menfolk fighting for King and country. The main characters are well rounded and believable, and their chosen paths are recognisable within the constraints of society.
