- Title: Wartime with the Tram Girls
- Author: Lynn Johnson
- Publisher: Hera Books on March 3, 2021
- Genre: Historical Fiction/WWI Saga
- Pages: 348
- Formats Available: Digital
- Rating: 4/5
Trigger Warnings: Violence, Talk of War/PTSD
Many thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources, Lynn Johnson, and Hera Books for providing me with a digital copy of Wartime with the Tram Girls with a request for an honest review.
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Wartime with the Tram Girls Blurb
July 1914: Britain is in turmoil as WW1 begins to change the world. While the young men disappear off to foreign battlefields, the women left at home throw themselves into jobs meant for the boys.
Hiding her privileged background and her suffragette past, Constance Copeland signs up to be a Clippie – collecting money and giving out tickets – on the trams, despite her parents’ disapproval.
Constance, now known as Connie, soon finds there is more to life than the wealth she was born into and she soon makes fast friends with lively fellow Clippies, Betty and Jean, as well as growing closer to the charming, gentle Inspector Robert Caldwell.
But Connie is haunted by another secret; and if it comes out, it could destroy her new life.
After war ends and the men return to take back their roles, will Connie find that she can return to her previous existence? Or has she been changed forever by seeing a new world through the tram windows?
Provided by Rachel’s Random Resources for Tour Use
My Review
Lynn Johnson has done a superb job writing Constance and the gang from Wartime with the Tram Girls. I enjoyed getting to know them all. If I didn’t already know, I would never have guessed that this is the second novel in a series. This book works great as a standalone. Though now that I have met Ginnie, I want to read her story.
Constance, aka Connie, is an interesting heroine. She wants independence in a patriarchal society. She forges her own way in unfamiliar territory, and for this spunk, she deserves respect. Connie bucks tradition to take on a job that is traditionally for men.
As much as I admire and respect Connie, she is full of angst about doing the right thing. She is so busy worrying about how others will feel about her actions that she fails to make good choices. When the truth would set her free, she chooses to hide things. This angst bugged me to no end. I wanted to shake her and tell her to just get on with it!
My only complaint with this novel is the tendency to drag a bit. Some issues repeat themselves often enough to combine them for easier reading. The flow was a bit stilted for me.
However, I enjoyed the book very much. I award Wartime with the Tram Girls 4 out of 5 stars. If you love historical fiction, you should like this series. It is very good as far as wartime sagas go. I look forward to the rest of the series as it comes out. I hope Alice gets a story of her own soon.
About the Author – Lynn Johnson
Lynn Johnson was born in the Staffordshire Potteries and went to school in Burslem, where the novel is set. She left school with no qualifications and got a job as a dental nurse (and lasted a day), a nursery assistant, and a library assistant before her ambition grew and she enrolled at the Elms Technical College, Stoke-on-Trent and obtained six O’levels. She obtained a Diploma in Management Studies and a BA Hons in Humanities with Literature from the Open University while working full-time.
Most of her working life was spent in Local Government in England and Scotland, and ultimately became a Human Resources Manager with a large county council.
She started to write after taking early retirement and moving to the north of Scotland with her husband where she did relief work in the famous Orkney Library and Archives, and voluntary work with Orkney’s Learning Link. Voluntary work with Cats Protection resulted in them sharing their home with six cats.
She joined Stromness Writing Group and, three months after moving to Orkney, wrote a short story which would become the Prologue to The Girl From the Workhouse.
Author’s Social Media Links: Twitter | Amazon Author Page
