Blog Tour: The Girl from the War Room by Catherine Law

Cassie Marsh is a woman who is good at keeping secrets. There are the secrets that she needs to keep due to her work in the War Room during WWII, there are the family secrets which have devastated her, and then there is her own secret that is kept locked tight in her heart.

We first meet Cassie and her family in the summer of 1936. Cassie, her parents and her brother Gerard have headed to Greenaways, the family country house. There, she will spend the summer with her aunt and uncle and her cousins, Marianne and Oliver, playing tennis, reading, walking nearby Dartmoor and just generally having a lovely time. Except this year, one of Oliver’s friends, Luke, is there which kind of disrupts the balance.

When Cassie overhears her mother and aunt talking about a big secret, she is perturbed, but it is only later when she discovers another shocking family secret that her equilibrium is truly rocked.

What we as readers know is that it isn’t going to be long before that idyllic country house life is going to be disturbed even more with the onset of the war. Cassie finds herself working as a typist in the War Rooms, deep under the ground in very heart of London. Unable to face the thought of living in her family’s London home, she is lodging with Luke, although there are lot of times when she finds herself catching any sleep she can in the dormitories in the underground bunker

As the war progresses, we see Cassie move from her initial role, to working in the map room, helping the powers that be keep track of the German bombing raids. However, with her knowledge of German, eventually she moves away from London to a coastal area where she is listening into the enemy’s communications and translating them.

From the title, you would expect that this book would be focused on Cassie’s work. While it is definitely an important part of the novel, really the focus is on the family dramas, the devastating impact of secrets when they are revealed and the way that war and tragedy can affect a family.

This is my second book by Catherine Law, and once again I enjoyed her work. Unlike the previous book this one is not a dual timeline as such. It does cover a few years but there is no modern storyline taking up page space. 

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews and with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted here. Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. Check out the other stops on the blog tour as well!

Rating 4/5

The Girl from the War Room

Through the trees in St James's Park she spotted the white facades of the Whitehall offices, and her stomach contracted. But it wasn’t nerves. Fortitude, yes, and a kind of hell-bent willingness. An understanding of the importance of her work; to do something, however small, to help. A privilege.

1941: A world away from idyllic childhood summers spent in Devon, Cassie Marsh steps through the sandbagged entrance to the War Room, determined to do her part for the war effort.

The air crackling with tension, the urgency of whispered conversations, the weight of secrets – nothing in her quiet upbringing has prepared her for this. Here, women like her are expected to work tirelessly, remain composed, even as their homes – and lives – are devastated by the Blitz.

But Cassie’s heart is already divided between love and duty. She dreams of rich summers at Greenaways from a lifetime ago, before her world was torn apart. She dreams of one person… the one she cannot – but must – forget.

And as her family begs her to return to safety, to the soothing, reassuring walls of the country house, Cassie must decide where her heart really lies. In times of war, can you ever afford to question your loyalty?

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/WarRoom

About the Author 

Catherine Law is the author of several historical novels set in the first half of the 20th century, in and around the First and Second World Wars. Her stories are inspired by the tales our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers tell us, and the secrets they keep. She lives ten minutes from the sea in Margate, Kent.

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