Blog tour: The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien

 

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It never ceases to amaze me how many little known stories there are about the events in WWII that are still being told in new stories. This is another one which features characters who share messages in their knitting and is based on a true story.

When an elderly woman has a stroke, her family is shocked when she suddenly starts speaking fluent French, her family are completely shocked.  They had no idea that their mother/grandmother who refused to leave their Channel island home could speak French. It turns out, she had a whole other life that she never told them about. 

Young Lennie Gallienne is an orphan who lives a very restricted life on the isle of Guernsey. When she received the dreaded telegram to tell her that her beloved brother is missing presumed dead, she refuses to accept it, and heads to London to try to find the truth. An unexpected meeting in the War Office, sees Lennie in training to be a spy .Of course, the men aren't necessarily happy to have a woman recruit with them. And they are even less enamoured when she uses her knitting to teach herself morse code. Her superior officers find out and think it is a great idea and so they all have to learn to knit.

Lennie finds herself working in a bookshop in Paris, helping distribute tracts and pass information back to London. Being a spy is a dangerous business though. It's hard to know who you can trust and if you catch the attention of the wrong people, it can be a matter of life or death. Even if you make it out alive, you can be left with enduring memories and guilt. 

In some ways this book felt a little like a thriller, with each chapter headed by a date and time, with the tension building and building as the time and dates got closer and closer together. 

Whilst this book is probably technically a dual time line, the modern parts of the story really only bookends the main story and form a very small part of the book. I do think that it added something even though it was only a very small part.

Unfortunately, the other thing that ended up playing only a very small part of the story is the knitting. Yes, there was a group of knitters that Lennie spent time with in Guernsey before she went to London, and then when she was teaching the other recruits. However, there wasn't much obvious knitting when she was in Paris which is the majority of the book. It feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, particularly given the title of the book.

I did find myself quite engrossed in the story very quickly. This is the first book in a series, and I am definitely intending to read the next book in the series. 

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog, British Isles Friday hosted at Joy's Book Blog and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here.  Thanks to the publisher and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. Be sure to check out other stops on the blog tour below.

Rating 4/5

About the Book

The Resistance Knitting Club

Inspired by the true story of a woman who used knitting patterns to encode intelligence during World War Two.

Guernsey, 2010. After a stroke, an elderly woman shocks her family by speaking perfect French – a language they never knew she possessed. As her granddaughter unravels seventy years of silence, a hidden wartime story emerges...

Paris, 1941. After her brother is declared missing in action at Dunkirk, eighteen-year-old Lenny Gallienne vanishes into Churchill’s secret army. In a bookshop on Rue de la Pompe, she poses as a simple shop girl while encoding intelligence from Nazi headquarters into knitting patterns. Each sweater smuggled to prisoners contains flight paths. Each scarf holds radio frequencies. Each mistake means execution.

Fellow agent, Harry Dennison is the only person who knows her real name. But when the SS close in, Lenny faces an impossible choice in the Metro tunnels beneath Paris – one that will haunt her family for generations. Because in the resistance, the most dangerous secrets are the ones you keep from those you love most.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Resistance-Knitting-Club-Jenny-OBrien-ebook/dp/B0FZ6F8397/

https://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Knitting-Club-Jenny-OBrien-ebook/dp/B0FZ6F8397/

About the Author

Jenny O’Brien writes complex thrillers and heartbreaking historical fiction, as well as intriguing romances. Silent Cry, initially self published, topped the Amazon kindle chart in both the UK and the USA. Most of her books have followed suit.

Jenny has over 40 years experience as a qualified nurse. She turned to creative writing as a hobby when her children were born.

Born in Ireland, she now lives in Guernsey with her husband and children.

BOOK NEWS

The Resistance Knitting Club comes out in February, 2026. A blend of Jenny’s two hobbies - knitting and reading. For more check out The Resistance Knitting Club Facebook Page. Join the conversation as well as share your crafting projects.



Social Media Links 

Twitter and Instagram @scribblerjb

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JennyOBrienWriter/

The Girl from Lake Maggiore by Siobhan Daiko

 

Young Italian woman Giulia Leone lives on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy. Her father runs a hotel and amongst the guests are some Jewish people, including Ester who is her best friend. It is 1943 and the Germans approaching Giulia and her family come up with a plan to help their Jewish guests, but it all goes terribly wrong. Giulia is the only person to escape. She doesn't know what happened to any of them, including her own parents, and now she finds herself on the German's wanted list. 

After finding a safe house for a while, it soon becomes clear that the Germans are still determined to find her. She therefore has no choice but to head to the hills and join a small band of partisans who are lead by Raffaele, the son of the hotel manager. Raffaele resents being lumbered with a spoilt rich girl but soon he begins to appreciate her willingness to work hard for the cause. However, she is not always keen to follow orders, especially as she is determined to find out what happened to her friends and her parents, 

Lake Maggiore straddles the border between Italy and Switzerland so you can see why people would head to that area in the hope of being able to escape from persecution, and if you have a look at the pictures it looks like a gorgeous part of Italy. I was glad to see that there were moments where the characters could appreciate the views, even if it was just for a fleeting moment

I do enjoy the stories that Siobhan Daiko brings us. This is the fifth book featuring Girls and each is set in a different region and often the stories are based on true events from WWII. They aren't strictly a series given that there aren't recurring characters. I have read The Girl from Venice, from Sicily and now from Lake Maggiore (as well as some of her other books set in Italy) but I still need to read Portofino and Bologna. I think I own both of them. Actually though, my introduction was through one of her book set in the Pacific theatre of war and I would love it if we got another story from there. 

This time though, the book didn't work as well as it might have. Some of the dialogue seemed somewhat simplistic and it detracted from the overall reading experience. It could be that it is not that different from previous books but I did really notice it this time.

Will I still be reading the next book from this author. Most likely! 

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here.

Rating 3.5/5

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Covers Featuring Interesting Typography

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Book Covers Featuring Cool/Pretty/Unique/etc. Typography (Typography is the art of arranging letters so they look visually appealing and more interesting than, for example, the body text of this blog post you’re reading now.). I am going to broaden the theme a bit to pick books where there are more than one font on the cover or where I found them interesting in some way.

Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada - I like how they fit the title, author and translator all in the sky of the illustration by putting it on an angle (my review)

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson - I like the mix of fonts, and the way they did the word train (my review)

The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson- Three different fonts probably shouldn't work but it does (my review) 

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman- This is a different font choice

Good Spirits by B K Borison - I like the font choice here

Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce - I really like how the cover looks like a typewriter (my review)

Escape to the Northern Lights by Carrie Walker - chose this purely because of the curly bit on the end of the word Escape (my review)

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina - I like how they use all lower case on this cover (my review)

Hooked by Asako Yuzuki - This book isn't out yet, but I like how the title is vertical instead of horizontal

The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden - Love the font and the colour on this one. (my review)

This week...

I'm reading

This week I had finished several books and two of them were 5 star reads. That has to count as a good reading week right? The first one was Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, which is the second book in the Beartown trilogy! I did pick up the third book in the trilogy from the library as well, and it is a very big book! I am looking forward to reading it!

I then finished The Girl from Lake Maggiore by Siobhan Daiko. I actually started this book a few weeks ago but I put it aside. When I was trying to decide what to read after finishing my last book, I figured I should probably finish that one!

I also started reading The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien for a blog tour later this week. So far I am enjoying it a lot

When my read on a theme book club chose the theme of Childhood Favourite, I decided pretty quickly that I was going to read Jean Plaidy as I read every one of her books I could get through my school library when I was 12 or 14. I have a whole stack of her books which I got from someone, and there were two copies of The Goldsmith's Wife so I took that as a sign that I should read that book. It was only on Wednesday night that I realised that I only had two day to get it read before the meeting! I loved it though and gave it 5 stars. That could be related to the nostalgia of reading one of her books after so many years.

There was only a small group of us at book club for the first meeting of the year and these were the books that we talked about. The next theme is a Book Someone Lent You!

Best of

In January I read 14 books and had quite a few that were 4.5 star reads. The two that were 5 star reads for me were Us Against You by Fredrik Backman and The Goldsmith's Wife by Jean Plaidy, which are pictured at the top of the post.

Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen

Here are all the places I travelled in my reading this month

Europe

UK - The Sweet Life Café, The Goldsmith's Wife 

Ireland - So Late in the Day 

Croatia - The Croatian Island Library

Norway - The Arctic Cruise 

France - The Boulangerie on the Corner

Sweden - Us Against You 

Italy - The Girl from Lake Maggiore 

US

New York - The Housemaid 

Australia

NT/SA - Everyone on this Train is a Suspect 

Asia

Japan - Dinner at the Night Library 

Japan/Korea/US - Flashlight

Korea - Soyangri Book Kitchen

I'm watching


Nothing in particular really

Life

On Saturday night we went to a new show that is on at the casino in the city. It was called Piper's Playhouse and is an interesting mix of Paris cabaret, magic, drag, burlesque and circus type acts. The acts were very, very good, and the night was a lot of fun. After the show, the venue turns into a piano bar and the crowd really got into it! I think even the pianist was a bit surprised by some of the things that the crowd did last night!

In the photo above, the show that you see is actually all made of white chocolate and was filled with fresh berries!

Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: New to Me Authors I Read in 2025
Flashlight by Susan Choi
Mini Reviews: Two Novels Set in Japan
Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: Bite by Bite by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Wrapping Up January in Japan 2026
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: February links


I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - February Links

Thank you to everyone who contributed a review in January for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. It's been a good start to the 2026 challenge. Currently there are nearly 50 links! I will be back in the next week or so with all the statistics for the month. 

I am looking forward to reading your reviews throughout the rest of the year! I am sure there is going to be a lot of great historical fiction discovered and shared with fellow HF lovers over the course of this year!

If you haven't already signed up, it's not too late! The sign up post is here.

Just to recap what participants need to know. At the beginning of each month I will put up a post which will have a Mr Linky embedded into it for you to add your link.

Please remember...

• add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review). 
• it doesn't matter where you review - Bookstagram, Goodreads etc as long as you share a direct link to your review.
• any kind of historical fiction is accepted (fantasy, young adult, graphic novels...)
• if you have time, have a look some of the other links that are present. You never know when you will discover new blogs or books!

You can also join the challenge group on Facebook which you can find here and don't forget to use the #histficreadingchallenge hashtag on the socials.

Let the reading begin!!

Wrapping up January in Japan 2026

 

And so we come to the end of my personal January in Japan event. Here's what I have done during January that has a Japanese flavour!

Book reviews

Menu for Happiness by Hisashi Kashiwai

Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi

Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada

Flashlight by Helen Choi

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina

The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park by Michiko Aoyama

Read

Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Hirada

Made

Japanese Chicken Curry

Watched 

Cafe Funiculi Funicula (based on Before the Coffee Gets Cold)

Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

When this book was announced as the Cook the Books selection for December/January, I wasn't sure that I would be able to join in as both the paper book and the e-books were pretty expensive. I tried a few different places and then realised that the book was available as an audiobook and I had credits available!

Bite By Bite is a collection of short food essays from essayist and poet Aimee Nexhukumatathil. It is a really interesting mix of nostalgia, the author's personal memories, culture and food history. 

The audiobook is narrated by the author herself. Some times that can work and other times not so much, but I do think it worked here, mainly because it is her memories, her heritage, her favourite foods etc. It also worked as an audiobook for me because it isn't a straight line narrative, by which I mean because all the essays are short and about particular subjects so if you don't listen for a week it doesn't matter. You can just pick up the next story and go from there. Some of the essays are 3 or 4 minutes long and others are about 15 minutes long. 

The author is of both Indian and Phillipino heritage which brings an interesting mix of ingredients, and a little bit of competition to the mix such as when her parents disagree about whether the best mangoes grow in India or The Phillipines. There are also a number a traditional Phillipino dishes that are included such as Lumpia and Kaong. There is also an influence from her travels, such as the essays about Shave Ice and associated social history in Hawaii and Gyro from Greece.

I did learn quite a lot from many of these essays, and it did get me thinking. For example, there are numerous chapters about different types of bananas. In our supermarkets, you might be lucky to find two varieties of bananas. Who decided that those are the only two varieties that we should have? I was particularly intrigued by a variety called Saba Banana that is less sweet but is used as part of a bananacue in the Philippines. Barbecued banana with a caramel sauce sounds amazing! There were also other fruits that also have some different banana asssociated names, such as Pawpaw which can be known as names like Poor Mans Bananas or Hoosier Bananas. Here in Australia, we tend to call them Papaya. 

I was surprised to see the suggestion that you can make your own homemade vanilla extract by using vanilla beans and vodka. I have never even thought that such a thing could be possible! And this chapter was also interesting due to the history of the cultivation of vanilla. 

Some of the essays are more a collection of sentences, for example in the chapter about onion, but others are personal stories which flow a lot better. 

I am so glad that I was able to participate this time. I don't read a lot of non fiction, so I am not sure I would have come across this book if not for Cook the Books. 

I decided pretty early on what I was going to make, although I did have a few other ideas, but in the end I decided to make something that is kind of inspired by the essay on pineapple. 

I really had two reasons for making Hummingbird cakes.  The first was because in the essay, it talks about the fact that hummingbirds are banned in Hawaii as they pollinate pineapples and change the internal structure of the pineapple making them less marketable.  So yes, I have made hummingbird cake because hummingbirds are banned in Hawaii

The second reason is because my auntie had given me this recipe ages ago. Every now and again I come across the piece of paper and so today I am putting it on the blog so that I can find it again when I want to find it, not just when I happen to find it. Oh, and and a bonus reason....I have been thinking about finding something to make with cream cheese frosting for weeks!

I have made Hummingbird Cake before, but that time it was a large cake, and it also had the addition of coconut in it. 

When I was making the cakes I just used normal oil as we only had extra virgin olive oil in the pantry, and I made 1.5x the frosting because that just didn't feel like enough with the measurements. It actually could have done with double the frosting. I started trying to pipe the icing but quickly ran short so ended up just using a knife to spread it on the top, which is why they look a bit messy! Although to be fair, my baking always looks messy. It does taste good though! I served these up as dessert when my sister and her family came for dinner and they got a big thumbs up.

The Cook the Books selection for February and March is Annabel Abbs' book Miss Eliza's English Kitchen, which is also published under the name The Language of Food. This will be a reread for me so it will be interesting to see if it works for me the second time round. Here is my original review.

Hummingbird Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup self raising flour
2 tspns ground cinnamon
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
440g can crushed pineapple in juice, well drained
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup mashed banana
2/3 cup light olive oil
Frosting
75g cream cheese, at room temperature 
25g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture

Line a 12-hole muffin pan (1/3 cup capacity) with paper cases

Sift flours, cinnamon and soda into a large bowl. Stir in sugar.

Combine pineapple, eggs, banana and oil in a large jug. Whisk well. Stir into flour mixture until just combined. Divide mixture evenly among paper cases.

Cook in a moderate oven (180C) for 20 minutes, or until cooked when tested. Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make frosting, beat cream cheese and butter in a small bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar. Beat until combined. 

Spread frosting over top of cold cakes.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Steak, baked potato, salad    
Sunday - Crispy lemon and garlic roast chicken (new)
Monday - Beef and broccoli noodles
Tuesday - Chicken and onion wraps
Wednesday - Honey pepper chicken and rice
Thursday - Pork chops, mash, beans and mushroom sauce
Friday - Takeout

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Mini Reviews: Two novels set in Japan

 

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina (translated by Lucy Rand)

Last year I read and loved The Library of Heartbeats, so I was very keen to read more from this Italian author who has lived in Japan for many years. Like Library, this book has a fundamentally sad premise but the way that it is written is so beautiful that it is easy to close the book with a smile, even while you ponder the emotions that you have felt while you read.

Near the coast there is a place where there is a man who has a disconnected phone booth, some times known as a wind phone, installed in his garden. People come from miles around to pick up the phone and speak to the people that they have lost. Some times they speak softly and tell their stories. Some times they yell at the top of their voices. 

Yui has suffered great loss when her daughter and mother were killed in the 2011 tsunami. Yui finds herself drawn to the garden time and time again, despite the fact that she can't bring herself to actually pick up the phone to speak to her loved ones. There she meets Takeshi who has lost his wife and now his young daughter refuses to speak at all. Can these people who have lost so much, find something to help them be able to live a more full life? Can they allow themselves to be happy.

I have a friend who is a Japanophile and I was talking to her about this authors books, and she started to cry because she said that the stories just sound so Japanese. Interestingly, it seems that this idea of a wind phone has spread around the world. I recently learned that we have some in Australia. There are also at least three Japanese movies/short films about wind phones.

I also wanted to mention how much I love both of the covers on this authors books. They are so simple but totally beautiful!

I don't think any more of this authors books have been translated into English, but if they are I will be reading them!

Rating 4/5

The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park by Michiko Aoyama (translated by Takami Nieda)

A while ago I read What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama. Whilst I mostly liked it, I did struggle with one particular aspect. So while I looked a this title and think that looks like fun, I was a little nervous. Unnecessarily so it turns out.


This book is set in a Tokyo neighbourhood where there has recently been a new apartment block built. Nearby, there is a small park where one of the installations is a rather worn plastic hippo whose name is Kabahiko. He has scratches on his body and paint where he shouldn't have. But that doesn't stop people from coming to visit the hippo. You see, there is a local legend that if you touch the hippo in the place where you feel pain, then you will be healed.

As the new residents move into the area, we get to understand where their pain is, from a struggling student to a new mother who is feeling lonely and a young man who fakes an injury to get out of sports at school and more. They each find their way to Kabahiko, and slowly they also find others in their community.

Like so many of these cosy, feel good Japanse books, this one of these stories which is episodic in nature. The characters are seemingly very separate but as the book comes together we see how the lives are interconnected.

I was relieved that there was no such issue in this book, and I am really excited that this year we get two new books from Michiko Aoyama, the first of which is called Hot Chocolate on Thursday and it is out in February!

Rating 4/5

Both of these books qualify for the Books in Translation challenge hosted by Jen at Introverted Reader. Healing Hippo also counts for the Japanese Literature Challenge hosted at Dolce Bellezza, and I am sharing this post as part of my personal January in Japan event!