I love books set around the war years and this was a lovely story about London children being evacuated to Harrogate. I could feel the tension as the children were waiting to be chosen and felt so pleased when the twins were taken to the local vicarage with a lovely couple. Their aunt who was expecting was also chosen to stay there.

I loved the friendships and squabbles and the life lessons learnt whilst the children were there. It must have been a very scary time for some of the children and you want them all to have experienced a welcoming family.

The cover instantly drew me to the book and I would be keen to read more by Katie King.

You feel the real sense of community and how people drew together to get through the tough times facing them. The vicar was a true example of his profession throwing open his doors to those in need and making the time as painfree as possible whilst also providing lots of memories to take away from their time as evacuees.

This is a heartwarming, heartbreaking and poignant novel with the bonus of snow and Christmas for good cheer. I can't begin to imagine how emotional and worrying it must have been for both parents and children with the evacuation, not knowing where they were going or if they would see their families again. It gave a clear insight into the era and the concerns of all. It made me think we don't know we are born these days but if we went to war again it would likely be a nuclear war which makes me shudder. I was watching a film called 'My boy John' recently where the son went off to fight in WW1 and the misery of the men in the trenches as they put bayonets on the ends of their guns and charged over the top dashing towards the German guns knowing they were unlikely to survive such a ridiculous manoeuvre drawn up by non-combatant bigwigs banging their war drums. It therefore made me grunt cynically in the story when it expressed how the government and powers that be hadn't thought out the evacuation very well. Some things never change! The twins Jessie (boy) and Connie are evacuated out of London docklands. I thought they were tough and resilient for their age. A lot of backbone and were prepared to make the best of things. It was strange viewing a time before benefits and the NHS and what a difference that would have made to the lives of many of the families from Bermondsey. Thank you to NetGalley and HQ Stories for letting me read this delightful story. I shall post this review on amazon.co.uk, GoodReads or Kobo and my blog after publication.

Autumn 1939 and London prepares to evacuate its young. In No 5 Jubilee Street, Bermondsey, ten-year-old Connie is determined to show her parents that she’s a brave girl and can look after her twin brother, Jessie. She won’t cry, not while anyone’s watching.
In the crisp Yorkshire Dales, Connie and Jessie are billeted to a rambling vicarage. Kindly but chaotic, Reverend Braithwaite is determined to keep his London charges on the straight and narrow, but the twins soon find adventures of their own. As autumn turns to winter, Connie’s dearest wish is that war will end and they will be home for Christmas.
An endearing story about the Connie & Jessie, you could feel for them as they were sent into the country for safety. It set the scene & feelings of England during the early 1940’s. A very enjoyable read not my usual genre but well worth the change

My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read

I must admit to being a bit confused by the cover of this book. Being a teacher I assumed that this book was for children about children in world war 2. As I began reading I realised this was not the case. Thankfully i was able to stop my self suggesting this book to my students.
It was an enjoyable and easy read. As the book progresses you find out about the lives of an evacuated family relocated to Harrogate. The characters are likeable and believeable.

This is a fairly enjoyable book to read. I liked the early sections in the East End of London as the war is breaking out. Unlike many other books about evacuee children, this starts with the emotional turmoil from the perspective of the parents.

There are some amusing sections, like the sing-song as a way of bridging the 'language barrier' between the London and Yorkshire dialects.

The story is told in a cosy and chatty way. I felt that the ending was somewhat abrupt, although it does reflect the title of the novel.

Perhaps Katie King intends to continue the story?

My thanks to Netgalley and HQ for a copy in exchange for this review.

I loved this book ,I found it a heart warming story .It told the story of the early days of WW11 when East London children were evacuated for their own safety and were sent many miles away which tore their families apart .It must have been so hard for the children and their Families but Connie and Jessie got lucky and were billeted to a vicarage in Yorkshire with a kindly Vicar and his wife .The East End London children and the Yorkshire children found it hard to understand each others accent at first and difficult to get on with each other but eventually they ended up having a good friendship .I didn't want the book to end and hope that there might be a follow up as I would love to know how the characters got on .

Thus is a really lovely story, very evocative of time and place. The east London children are forced into evacuation, because it is thought that the Docklands could be in serious danger of bombing, and you see the worries and fears from all sides, the parents worrying whether their children will be looked after, or that they will forget home, the children scared of the unknown, their hosts often not happy about accepting children as they would get more money by accepting an adult. Jessie and Connie are lucky, their parents have 'rainy day' savings, and make sure they have everything they need, but the book makes you aware that wasn't the case for all the children, some were ill prepared for the much colder Yorkshire climate.
You learn that travel was difficult, that people were frightened of being ill as it cost money to visit the doctor. You realise that when the children arrive in Yorkshire they don't understand what is being said to them, and the Yorkshire folk don't understand them either, which makes for a difficult start. Hostilities break out between the two factions of children when they have to share a school, and it gets quite violent.
Peggy goes with the children, her newly-enlisted husband Bill wants her out of danger away from London as she is pregnant with their long awaited first child, and you can feel and understand her misery and loneliness when he writes to her so rarely, hardly says anything, and never mentions the baby. She had thought that he was away fighting, but suspects he is still somewhere in England, training.
All in all, a lovely story, accurately relating a time that most of us can only imagine. Well worth reading.

A timely reminder of how primitive maternal medicine was in the 1940s - and how costly before the NHS, and thus we have the reluctance to seek medical help even when clearly necessary.
I loved the fact that both sides - the Yorkshire people and the Londoners - thought that the other was speaking a foreign language. Such broad dialects have now largely disappeared and you rarely hear a true Cockney, let alone broad Yorkshire with its old English/Viking words being used.
Funnily enough, I have just read an article suggesting that there are some good words in English we can use that have gone out of fashion - and another suggesting that we can br broaden our language by using some foreign words that have meanings in one word that take us several to try and describe! However, some of these words are very difficult to pronounce eg those from the Inuit language!

One thing that I hadn’t realised about WW2 was that the Govt had suggested - firmly - that all pets be euthanized, to save food of course.
I felt that the childrens’ behaviour as described was very believable, and overall found this a heart-warming, cosy story with a good possibility of follow-up books. After all, who wouldn’t want to know what happens about the abusive but absent husband and the doctor’s romance...

Autumn 1939 and London prepares to evacuate its young. In No 5 Jubilee Street, Bermondsey, ten-year-old Connie is determined to show her parents that she’s a brave girl and can look after her twin brother, Jessie. She won’t cry, not while anyone’s watching.

In the crisp Yorkshire Dales, Connie and Jessie are billeted to a rambling vicarage. Kindly but chaotic, Reverend Braithwaite is determined to keep his London charges on the straight and narrow, but the twins soon find adventures of their own. As autumn turns to winter, Connie’s dearest wish is that war will end and they will be home for Christmas. But this Christmas Eve there will be an unexpected arrival…

This is a nice heart warming story about a story of Evacuees at wartime, this book does have a nicer side than most types of this story and the twins Connie and Jessie are lucky to live with Mabel and Roger who look after them, also they have the bonus of the Aunt Peggy being with them.

I did feel as is the story stalled slightly and kept repeating itself, I didn't really enjoy the letters between Peggy and her sister Barbara.

This is a very easy read giving a great feel for the early days of WWII and how it tore families apart with the evacuation of London.
Smashing story.

an interesting insight into how evacuation from a poor part of London affected not only the evacuees but the families and communities into which they were placed. However the seemingly happy ending was not true to life, unfortunately, and I doubt many had such an experience.

A lovely book, that I looked forward to reading each evening, i enjoyed the ups and downs of the children from the different backgrounds.
I really didn't want this book to end - I'm sure a follow on could be done.

A heart warming tale of evacuation at the start of world war two. The characters are great,the children the stars

I enjoy reading about the war years ( my parents era ) in novel form but this was a different perspective from the evacuees and their trials and tribulations. Well worth reading