As the Sun Breaks Through (The Cliffehaven Series)
This novel is the 15th in the World War Two saga set in Cliffehaven, a small town on the south coast of England. The central character is Peggy Reilly whose husband, Jim, is away in Burma fighting the Japanese. It is June 1944, and the war is in its final stages, but Britain still has to contend with V1 bombers, which cause devastation when they are dropped on the town, especially for Peggy’s own sister. As this is the second book in the series that I have read, some of the minor characters have become more familiar, but the reader only gets glimpses into some of their lives, which may have featured more prominently in previous books, resulting in some amount of puzzlement. A family tree helps to place most of the main characters, though many of them do not actually feature in this particular story. Descriptions of the hardships suffered by families in Britain and of the fighting in Burma are very vivid and take the reader back to those times. Some ongoing mysteries are solved, such as the disappearance of the pub landlady, Rosie. The next book, Homecoming, will be the final book in the series.
