What a jewel of a book, this is. Set during the London Blitz it encompasses love, friendship and dysfunctional family relationships as well as treachery and death.
Charlotte Richmond, daughter of an MP, has a dull job as a typist, and lives in digs, refusing an allowance from her father. At twenty she has already suffered the loss of her mother when she was a young girl and her beloved brother never returned from France. Sharing gin and confidences with her best friend Elena keeps her sane, but when she dies in an air raid her fragility intensifies. Only the sight of a young man who feeds the birds amidst the rubble of the Blitz brings an unexpected joy into her life. But then she is haunted by the deaths of two more friends and the sense that she herself is being stalked intensifies… In her grief and suspicion, Charlotte becomes increasingly vulnerable not knowing whom to trust or if she can rely on her own instincts.
This is a superbly written story, which grips the reader from the beginning. The evocative descriptions of a city under attack witnessed from a very personal viewpoint add a poignancy to the historical perspective that is at times heart-breaking and terrifying. Jo Baker has created characters who will linger in your mind and the present tense narrative keeps you totally immersed in their dangerous journey.
Jo Baker is an acclaimed author of seven previous novels including the Sunday Times bestselling Longbourn. The Midnight News is published by Phoenix Books, an imprint of The Orion Group.