I finished Crooked Heart and immediately opened V For Victory, thus deferring that sense of loss you get when you finish an excellent book. That is how I’m feeling now I’ve come to the end of Lissa Evan’s third book in her trilogy (read my review of Old Baggage here).
It’s now 1944 and Vee Sedge and Noel are now living, along with assorted lodgers, in Mattie’s old house near Hampstead Heath. Vee, now known as Mrs Overs, is just about keeping home and hearth together as the war drags on. Noel is 14 and an excellent cook, although Vee is concerned that her residents require slightly plainer cooking. Their relationship has flourished since the end of Crooked Heart and this is once again a marvellous tale of misfits and good intentions in times of strife.
‘She’d already lost Mr Purbisson in the last month, though admittedly that was because of the V2s rather than the food – he’d gone back to his sister in Gloucester, his nerves in shreds, which meant that Noel was now short of a Geography teacher, and the next time she interviewed a lodger she’d have to find out not only if they could meet the rent, but how much they knew about alluvial planes.’
The realities of war on the Home Front are felt keenly, particularly in the strand of the plot concerning Winnie, an ARP Warden, who turns out to be one of Mattie’s Amazons – you feel sure that Mattie would feel very proud of her former charge. This novel is slightly looser in its structure, but it’s a chance for Evans to show once again just how brilliantly she does characterisation. Life is precarious at the best of times for her WWII characters, but when secrets theatre to reveal themselves, Vee and Noel find help from unlikely sources.
As with all good series, I’m left wanting to know what happens next. I’m really hoping Evans isn’t going to leave Noel and Vee in the 1940s. Safe to say, V for Victory is another excellent read from this author.
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