I love Lucy Caldwell's writing, her short stories are concise explorations of emotions, I was therefore intrigued to read her work in novel form. She did not disappoint, making excellent use fo the extra space that the novel provides to have many characters and possible scenarios to explore. The main focus of the book is the Belfast Blitz during the second world war, she does not shy away from showing the true horror of war and I was gripped at key moments to see whether people survived or not. She also captures beautifully the sometimes claustrophobic experience of life for women in the 1940's especially in Northern Ireland through several of the women in different ways, across class and religion. I was also interested in the portrayal of cross religious marriages being less of an issue than it would be during the troubles. Sectarianism did exist and is shown in subtle ways through the people and their relationships and less subtle ways through the lack of employment opportunities for catholics. A fascinating, well researched novel, highlighting an aspect of WW2 rarely shown.


With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

The download date was unfortunately missed, I would be happy to re-review if it became available again. I have awarded stars for the book cover and description as they both appeal to me. I would be more than happy to re-read and review if a download becomes available. If you would like me to re-review please feel free to contact me at thesecretbookreview@gmail.com or via social media The_secret_bookreview (Instagram) or Secret_bookblog (Twitter). Thank you.

There is an unusual calmness in Lucy Caldwell’s These Days, a novel of the Belfast bombings of World War II, which inflicted truly horrific destruction and loss of life.

Told from the viewpoint of the Bell family, their daughters Emma and Audrey are the two main movers of the book as their life-changing, respective experiences of love and its loss are, mainly, backgrounded by the bombing.

Their mother, impelled by the menopause and increasingly strong memories of her past, is also developing in this novel.

There is a strong supporting cast and an illumination of life for young women of all classes at that time.

Ms Caldwell has an easy style, particularly good on dialogue. The grisly bits, though, are very grisly.

The ending is beautifully laid-back.

Beautifully written and what feels like a very real account of what happened in Belfast during WW2, albeit with fictional characters. The sisters were really well drawn and this was a moving account of what life was like for them, a fascinating account of social history. I really enjoyed it, there was depth and of course some of the depictions were harrowing but beautifully handled. It flows along and is really quite absorbing, definitely recommend.

One of the stereotypes of North(ern) Irish fiction is that those who write it are constrained by writing about the legacy of the Troubles. Lucy Caldwell here turns her eye to another traumatic event in Northern Ireland, which is little acknowledged for the destruction it wrought on the communities of East and North Belfast. It was only after moving to Belfast in 2000, for example, that I found out that the areas which had been flattened in working class areas of East and North Belfast were WW2 damage and not Troubles damage.

These Days follows the story of two sisters, Audrey and Emma. The sisters are dealing with the intricacies of relationships and family life while also trying to make sense of the impact of the bombing of the city on those relationships. One is in a traditional relationship with a doctor, the other in a secret relationship with a woman.

I was very much touched by the sense of place Caldwell creates, linking the past and the present through places like the Ulster Museum and the Floral Hall at Bellevue, the latter having been neglected and has fallen into disrepair. She takes a picture of a Belfast I don’t know and reminds me that it is part of the city I do know.

If I could change something about the novel, it would be to expand on the stories of the working class characters, which while they are there, are secondary to the stories of the middle class sisters.

Homefront WW2 stories are not my normal fare, but this was important for me to read as someone living in Belfast; a recognition that history did not begin here in 1969.

A beautiful novel set in Belfast in April 1941. I didn’t realize the devastation the city suffered during the Second World War. We see it mostly through the eyes of the Bell family – especially daughters Audrey, engaged to be married to a young doctor, and Emma, in love with a fellow female first aider. I was wary of the characterization of the lower class, and the period slang can be a bit heavy-handed, but the evocation of a time of crisis is excellent, contrasting a departed normality with the new reality of bodies piled in the street and in makeshift morgues. The lack of speech marks, fluid shifting between perspectives, and alternation between past and present tense keep the story from seeming too familiar or generic. All of the female characters have hidden depths: the mother, Florence, is pining over a lost love, and Audrey’s colleague Doreen (based on a real figure) is in love with a married man. This reminded me most of Pat Barker’s war novels and The Night Watch by Sarah Waters.

A few favourite lines:

“How are we ever going to recover, she [Audrey] thought, from having seen such things?”

“I never knew.
Well. That’s not your fault, but now that you do, it is your responsibility.”

A gripping historical novel set during WW2 and focussing on the lesser-known Belfast blitz, viewed from the perspective of two sisters: Emma, employed in a tax office, and Audrey, volunteer nurse with a secret life – vivid characters brought to life by Lucy Caldwell’s nuanced writing. Reading about the terrible bombings, destruction, devastation and impact on human lives with the war raging in Ukraine makes for a harrowing read, timely and urgent. Good historical novels always manage to speak of the present times and These Days does not disappoint.

My thanks to Faber Books and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lucy Caldwell captures the essence of Belfast during war time in this new novel, with a delightful mix of narrative and description we are introduced to the Bell family, a doctors family who become heavily affected by the aftermath of the terrible bombing in Belfast durimg May 1941. Emma and Audrey, the grown up daughters of the family are very different with Emma volunteering to help a First Aid station and coming face to face with the horrific suffering and destruction of her home city. She challenges the norms of society when she realises she is attracted to her own sex and battles with her own emotions whilst dealing with the broken bodies around her Her sister meanwhile exists in a more sanitised and controlled life with a steady office job and doctor boyfriend who while not settling her world alight is a suitable partner. Audrey is challenged though as the outside world at war infiltrates her own life and her whole future comes into question.
A fascinating and at times harrowing read , this novel brings to life the horrors of war as it reaches the innocent lives of many causing wanton havoc and destruction. The enduring Belfast spirit is evident in these pages and the author has stayed satisfyingly true to her roots. Highly recommended

It's a brilliant novel I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. A vivid and powerful historical background, a fascinating setting, well rounded and realistic characters.
The everyday life and the Blitz in Belfast, normal people and how they were affected.
I loved how the author split the plot into vignette and the storytelling is excellent.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A gripping and quietly powerful novel that really brought the war years in Belfast to brilliant life. I really enjoyed the fact that the book was set over a more condensed time period, as it was easy to quickly become invested in the characters and the plot moved along nicely - the events of the bombings and the setting of the city felt very real and vibrant. I also liked the split narrative between the different family members, which made the reader feel like a real insider to all their different perspectives and situations within the family, and understand the secrets and inner lives of each one. I think this novel will really appeal to readers of historical fiction and social history - I have been recommending it to fans of The Offing by Ben Myers.

During 1941 Belfast suffered a Blitz with bombing that flattened parts of the city. In ‘These Days’ we follow they lives of Emma and Audrey as they continue their lives under horrendous circumstances. Both characters are beautifully portrayed as we read about their lives and their relationships.
The story describes the horror of the bombing and at the time of reading this novel, Ukraine has been invaded and so the novel was all the more poignant as the nightly news covers the plight of the people in Ukraine.
It’s a gripping story of life during wartime.

A very well researched book about a part of the war I knew previously only by name. The characters were reasonably interesting bit a bit predictable. I wasn’t l keen on how the author introduced the dialect speech. It seemed a bit clumsy but didn’t spoil the story really.

Anyone who has read any of Caldwell's short story collections will know that she is an infinitely gorgeous writer, with an incredible ability to touch the soul in crystal-clear, inventive and beautiful language. These Days delivers more of Caldwell's quality prose, and then some.

I don't read lots of work about this period, but Caldwell is an autobuy author for me and I knew very little about Belfast's experience of the Blitz so I was very curious about this one. It's the story of two sisters who are living in Belfast - Audrey, who is engaged to marry a man she (maybe?) loves, and Emma, a volunteer nurse who hides a secret from everyone she holds dear. The sisters have plenty in common and their relationship is the novel's backbone - I was reminded, in the tender mooments between the two, of the late, great, Maeve Binchy, such was the depth of these characters. Their stories interact with others - some strangers, and some family - in sad and sometimes unexpected ways, keeping the reader on their toes.

And, of course, the entwined stories are set against the horror and humdrum of the Blitz, illuminated remarkably by Caldwell. It's not just language - it's evident that a huge amount of historical research went into the novel, with some characters based on real-life counterparts. Caldwell creates a full and achingly real portrait of a city shattered but unbroken. The bombing raids which form the novel's central narrative are shocking and terrifying to read, especially given the current horrors we are reading about in real life in Ukraine. It's dizzying to read, and a testament to Caldwell's strengths as a writer.

As a short story writer, she writes comeplling vignettes, or images, almost, and peppers these throughout the novel - they serve to show the devastation the Blitz brought down on Belfast, and how it impacted all aspects of people's lives, with a slant towards the impact on lives of women. It's a gripping, heartbreaking read that will stay with me for a long time.

It is very difficult to do little else but shout ‘Read this book!’ so engaged was I with Lucy’s novel. Set in Belfast in 1941, at a time when confusion and fear reign, she writes about sisters Audrey and Emma, opting for different paths in life but each knowing that something isn’t quite right. Each night, the Belfast Blitz is well documented; the skies light up as families take cover, hiding in makeshift shelters, hoping for the terror to pass. But life has to go on: Audrey is preparing to be married, while Emma is in a relationship of which many would disapprove. Under immeasurable stress and disorder, the sisters, their parents and brother, plus the characters they come into contact with, have to navigate through the city. It is warmly written, it drips with Northern Irish phrasing and detail and it was a pleasure to read. One to pick up again and again and continually spot something new.

Like Alex Hyde’s Violets, another novel about WWII published recently, These Days isn’t about war and violence as such, but about the emotional impact it has on those living through it. Caldwell focuses on one family - The Bells - who are middle class and living in Belfast, which had so far not suffered much in the war, as things start to change for them. Even a month ago, a novel about war wouldn’t have hit as hard but reading about bombings and community shelters and gas masks takes on a whole other level of importance when it’s happening right now in Ukraine.

I think the first time I heard details of the Belfast Blitz was when I had to do a short biography on my Grandfather, part of a GCSE history project when I was 15. He could remember standing in the haggard, watching lights over Belfast that came from the fires, some forty miles away. Shortly after, my grandparents honeymooned somewhere on the North Coast, and the train was full of child refugees, being sent to the countryside for safety.

It was the bombs of the eighties and nineties that I was more aware of from the television. This was something different, an earlier incarnation of Belfast, linked to a world war. ‘That’s us now… That’s Belfast finished,’ says someone in this book at one stage. But we know different, that there was was more to come in later years.

The main focus of this book are the two Bell sisters, ‘flighty, impulsive, earnest Audrey’, in a relationship with a doctor, and ‘kind, stubborn, awkward Emma’ who falls for some one eleven years her senior, full of life and energy.  Their parents are Phillip, also a doctor, mother Florence and younger son Paul. They live in a middle class area of East Belfast.

The story takes place over four nights in 1941, when 100,000 incendiaries fell, 10,000 homes were destroyed and over 1,000 peoples lost their lies.  These are just statistics but Lucy Caldwell’s skill for me is in weaving the inner lives of the characters with the destruction visited  upon the city.

One of the best ways prose comes alive for me is when I hear the characters in my inner ear and this book is a brilliant example of that. I love the ‘gulders’, the ‘boys a dear’ (I’ve heard my father say this), ‘the so-you-coulds’ and the ‘heart going like the clappers.’ It really gave the characters depth and I got a laugh out of the ‘insanitary bombs.’

The devastation, when it comes, is described in the most haunting imagery. I’ve stood in St Georges Market, and could easily hear the ‘clattering, hammering noise,’and  see the ‘bulging hessian sacks.’ The details like the roaming packs of dogs, the wandering lost souls, blackened with soot, calling out childrens names, the escaped black horses belonging to the undertaker, Maisie and Bobby…they all struck a chord with me.

The aftermath of the bombing and the fires really got me in this book, maybe more so this past week with the events in Ukraine. I was really drawn to Emma and Audrey, their hopes and dreams playing out in the midst of this horror. People are still falling in and out of love, making plans for the future and wondering what might have been if a different path had been taken. Lucy Caldwell does a wonderful job in capturing this.

There’s also a switch to another characters voice at a later stage in the book, which I wasn’t expecting and would usually annoy me. It’s another viewpoint with regrets when it comes to love, vulnerability and uses a really striking image; it caught me unawares and it works really well.

Like I say, in the week that’s in it, this book resonated with me. I felt drawn to the emotional lives of the characters and was deeply moved by suffering in the city, and it’s described with such an economy of language and flows so well from page to page. It’s well researched but it’s woven so finely into the story that it’s effortless. To continue the analogy, you can’t see the stitches and it’s just a pleasure to read.

I received this ARC from Faber and Faber and Netgalley in return for an honest review. Many thanks to them both and to Lucy Caldwell.

It goes without saying that Caldwell became one of my favourite authors last year. I talk about how much I love her books regularly on my book page. When I got approved to read this by @faberbooks & @netgalley I was ridiculously excited.

These Days is from the perspective of two sisters, one city during four nights of the Belfast Blitz. Following the lives of Emma and Audrey - one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman - as they try to survive the horrors of the four nights of the bombing.

I really enjoyed this. I instantly loved the perspectives between Emma and Audrey, who have two very distinct voices. They were characters I came to truly care about as the novel progressed.

Caldwell’s writing in These Days is reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s to me. Between the period and the issues explored, I felt like I was diving back into my final year exploring that modernist-type era and style. Yet the writing was also truly Caldwell in her exploration of womanhood, sexuality and feminism.

The Belfast Blitz is also something that isn’t discussed nearly often enough in history books, so to see someone write a fiction novel on it is really refreshing. Caldwell explores the true human suffering that the people of Belfast experienced during these bombings.

These Days is a book about resilience during hard times, finding and, ultimately, staying true to yourself. If you like historical fiction and interesting female characters, this is a book you should definitely check out. Caldwell is a true talent.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC

Belfast 1941. A normal middle-class family- father is a doctor, mother keeps house, two daughters Audrey and Emma, and son Paul. And then the germans bomb the city!
The story is based around the family, their servants and friends. It is written in such a way that you walk alongside them through the devastation that they experience, hearing their thoughts and fears as well as their longings for life and love. The authors writing really brings the characters to life for the reader. A gritty telling of life during wartime.

Lucy Caldwell's fourth novel, These Days, is set during the devastating Belfast Blitz of 1941, and focuses primarily on two middle-class sisters: 21-year-old Audrey, who has recently become engaged and is already having doubts, and 18-year-old Emma, secretly in love with another woman who, like her, works for the ambulance service. Their mother, Florence, also gets a significant sub-plot, as she reflects back on a long-lost love and forward as she wonders whether her life is essentially over: 'How is it, she sometimes thinks, that this is her life, that here she is, a wife of twenty-two years this September, mother of two adult daughters, of a baby son already matching her for height?... It isn't, she hastily thinks, that she's unhappy, nor ungrateful with her lot: just bemused, she supposes, that this has turned out to be it.' There are also snippets of narration from other characters: most notably, a brilliant, vividly rendered football match from the point-of-view of the sisters' younger brother, Paul.

These Days is, in some ways, refreshing; not only does it highlight a lesser-known Blitz, but Caldwell's writing manages to make familiar details from many, many World War Two novels feel immediate again. We feel the sudden loss of whole streets and landmarks and the fear of seeking safety in an air raid shelter that itself becomes a target. I also liked the subtle characterisation of Audrey and Emma, and the way that they are not set against each other. However, in other ways, it's very familiar; it rehearses a stereotypical queer trope, and I found the inclusion of perspectives from outside the family circle distracting. This seemed to be a gesture towards encompassing the working-class as well as the middle-class experience of the Blitz, but became a bit tokenistic. In particular, the narrative arc of 'Wee Betty', one of the family's servants, is very sentimental. A well-written but not especially memorable novel. 3.5 stars.

Lucy Caldwell writes a WW2 piece of unforgettable historical fiction that documents the devastation of Belfast, culminating with its people openly talking of the city being finished after the horrors of the Belfast Blitz in 1941. The book is structured around the Dockside Raid, the Easter Raid and the Fire Raids, focusing on the Bell family, Philip, a doctor, Florence, his wife, and the 3 children, the impulsive and impetuous 21 year old Audrey, serious and awkward 18 year old Emma, and the young, boisterous Paul. Audrey works at a tax office, forming an influential friendship with Doreen Bates, a colleague, and is on the cusp of getting married to Richard, a doctor. Emma, despite family objections, works as a volunteer at the First Aid Post, tending to casualties, believing she is making the best use of her skills in her contribution to help the city during the war.

Florence has lived through challenging times, including the Great War and the civil war, after a long marriage she finds herself dwelling more and more on a past love, Reynard, he is consuming more and more of her thoughts, and she wonders about what more could she do with her life. We learn of the ordinary everyday activities, Audrey growing more and more uncertain about what love is and questioning whether she is making the right choice in planning to marry Richard, whilst Emma finds delight in her discovery of a new world and a new love with another woman. Without question, the novel's greatest strength is revealing the harrowing impact of the German raids, the in depth details of the bodies piling up, the terror and panic in the population, the unbearable injuries, the fires, the inability to forget what has been seen and the unavoidable PTSD that follows, sending their children out of Belfast to try and protect them.

Probably like so many others, I was unaware of just how much suffering and pain Belfast endured during the war. With her impressive research, Caldwell paints an unflinching and unvarnished picture of a city already under pressure with poverty, food shortages, unemployment and rationing, then taken to the brink of hell on earth with the raids. The carnage, the atmosphere of sheer dread, people looking for the missing, the exodus from the city, the grief following the nightmare losses, the abandoned pets, it would have been impossible for people to prepare for the realities they are forced to confront. The Belfast Blitz is brought alive through the characters created by the author, the Bell family and others such as Wee Betty Binks, Doreen and little Maisie, the shattered lives, the novel throws a much needed light on Northern Ireland's experience of WW2, evocatively capturing the human cost of war on the Irish communities, business and infrastructure. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.