Blog tour: The Air Raid Book Club

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Welcome to the blog tour for The Air Raid Book Club by Annie Lyons!

More about the book…

As the bombs began to fall, the book club kept their hopes alive...

London, 1938. Bookseller Gertie Bingham is facing difficult times, having just lost her beloved husband, Harry, and with a lingering sadness at never having been able to have a child of her own.

Struggling to face running the bookshop she and Harry opened together, Gertie is preparing to sell up and move away when she is asked if she would be willing to take in a young Jewish refugee from Germany.

Gertie is unsure and when sullen teenager Hedy Fischer arrives, Gertie fears she has nothing left to give the troubled girl.

But when the German bombers come and the lights go out over London, Gertie and Hedy realise that joining forces will make them stronger, and that books have the power to bring young and old together and unite a community in need in its darkest hour...

More about the author…

After a career in bookselling and publishing, Annie Lyons became an author, and was shortlisted for the RNA Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year Award

When not working on her novels, she teaches creative writing.

She lives in south-east London with her husband and two children and puppy, Nelson.

My impressions…

Despite being one of my favourite place and time combinations when it comes to book settings, London in the days of the second world war would not be my chosen destination if I could travel back in time. And yet, despite all the hardships, the pain and the loss encountered by the characters in this wonderful book, I would describe Bingham Books and the people whose lives revolved around it, with their unlikely friendships and strong sense of community, as a safe haven. If you have a weakness for heart-warming stories, then this is the book you need to pick up this summer.

Three words to describe it. Emotional. Inspiring. Extraordinary.

Do I like the cover? It is spellbinding!

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, but I really want to!

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