Mrs. Porter Calling (The Emmy Lake Chronicles)
Mrs. Porter Calling is the latest addition to AJ Pearce’s humorous, touching Emmy Lake Chronicles, and it fully lives up to its predecessors.
All three novels take place in and around Woman’s Friend, a fictional magazine published in London during World War II. Our protagonist is a young journalist, Emmy Lake, who has just become Mrs. Charles Mayhew (Charles is fighting in North Africa, and their letters thread through the text) but continues her career and her agony-aunt column under her maiden name.
Once again, Woman’s Friend comes under fire, attacked by their new publisher, the Hon. Cressida (“Call me Egg”) Porter, who, after distributing goody bags all around, promptly sets out to make a few “tiny” changes, which threaten the magazine’s down-to-earth identity and, eventually, its very existence.
Mrs. Porter is a delicious villainess. Accompanied by Small Winston, her hilarious spoiled dog, she tries to turn Woman’s Friend into Vogue. Naturally she wants to ax Emmy’s column, which she deplores, like most of the rest of the magazine, as “A Bit Mis” (as in miserable).
Woman’s Friend might be the title of the whole series, for all are stories of friendship. Many of Emmy’s friends, a set of distinct and delightful characters, carry on from book to book, as do her coworkers, as do the horrors of war, which are not glossed over. The Blitz may have ended, but suffering has not, and Pearce is as adept at evoking pain and loss as comedy and love.
And so far, it’s only 1943. With luck, the Emmy Lake Chronicles will continue to make readers laugh and cry till peace breaks out.
