This isn't my usual genre I have to say. But I did enjoy this slow paced story. Set during the war I found it part fiction and part history lesson. My.mother in law enjoys this genre so I will be recommending this one to her.

The Girls from See Saw Lane is set in Brighton in the 1960s. The story explores the themes of friendship, love, happiness, betrayal and forgiveness. The story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. A nostalgic read, that made me smile and laugh but also at times cry. I highly recommend The Girls from See Saw Lane.

I loved this book, a beautiful story that captured my heart and left me with a pretty bad book hangover. lol I would definitely recommend it.

Mary Pickles and Dottie Perks had been best friends since they were eight years old in Brighton. It is now 1963, they are now seventeen years old, working together in Woolworths and enjoying their lives. They are both looking for a man and things do not turn out as expected. Mary fell for Ethol when they were in school, but he is now the lead singer in a local band and is mooned over by many other girls. Ralph is his best friend, who is also dating Dottie. Unfortunately, things do not turn out the way they had planned.

This is the story of best friends. Mary and Dottie stood by each other from the time they met when they were only 8. Dottie was very insecure, so when Mary wanted to be her friend, she considered herself lucky. Mary was the leader of the two and planned their activities and friends. Something happened shortly after their 17th birthdays that causes a rift in their friendship. Can they move forward together? This is a realistic story about friendship and heartache. It brought back a lot of memories for growing up in the 60s and 70s. There are mistakes made that can change lives. The Girls From See Saw Lane is a coming of age story that deals with friendship, love, forgiveness and growing up. It is the first book I have read by Sandy Taylor, but I will look for more. This is the middle book in a trilogy, so I am looking forward to reading the other two.

This is a book that draws you in quickly and I was soon bound up in Mary and Dottie's lives. Childhood friends, they both now work in Woolworth's. At 17 they're young, free, single and having fun. But Mary doesn't see herself in Brighton forever she has ambitious dreams of going to art school in Paris. Dottie however has simpler, more traditional hopes of getting married, settling down and having a family. But life has a way of thwarting plans and in this case in ways neither they nor I saw coming.

It's an evocative read for anyone with memories of the sixties. It vividly recreates the social mores of the time that dictated the way people lived their lives and contributed to the tragedy that strikes the girls. The storytelling with it's descriptions of the coffee bars, the music, the clothes and the dances all helped give the book another touch of authenticity. It had me well and truly hooked and involved.

While it looks a light read, it has it's darker tones and a poignancy I hadn't anticipated when I first became immersed in Brighton's sixties cafe culture. Thankfully there's another book that follows that will hopefully give me the outcome I was wishing for.

having not read the 1st on in this series, i really enjoyed this book, the friendships and troubles that those girls were going through in the sixties was a great insight.

The Girls from See Saw Lane is a nostalgic, heart-breaking and tragic coming of age tale set in the 1960s.

This is such a sweet raw emotional journey.

We follow Dottie and Mary who are the best of friends, from young to women.

I had so many thought about this nostalgic read. When all us kids has to worry about was what sweets to buy with our pocket money. I so remember the Black Jacks, sweet chews.

Then the fan following of Mick Jagger [Rolling Stones]

Dottie and Mary as they 'discover' boys are not annoying anymore as they go through puberty and fall in love.....romance on the horizon.

Things did not always go smooth and we meet times when the reader will cry along with them, feel along with them, laugh along with them.

This is book 2, be sure to read book 1.

I've enjoyed this series and glad that at last I got to read the secound part of the series

My thanks to Bookoutour and Net Galley

A Cut Above follows a group of school friends in Edinburgh through the 60s and 70s. There’s so much high drama in this working-class neighborhood, with forbidden lovers, tragic deaths, family secrets, social manipulations and chance encounters, it’s impossible to put it down. The novel’s not all secret paternity and forbidden romance, though, there are also pram-pushing grannies, sixties British Invasion fashion, and lots of tea-drinking. In one scene, a character talks about loving the twists and turns of the plucky characters of Coronation Street, and it almost broke the fourth wall. That’s exactly what I loved is in this novel. Fans of Corrie or The Girls from See Saw Lane, willing to suspend a little disbelief for a heartwarming soap will love A Cut Above, too.

For better or for worse - in friendship.

Dottie and Mary have been friends for ages. Always together, always having fun, enjoying their childhood and now teen years together. Dottie, the stabile one, wishing "just" to have a normal life. Mary, always the daring one, the dreamer, the one wanting more. And her "more" contains Elton, the singer of the local band, who likes her, but is not willing to commit. Dottie, happily in love with Ralph, is willing to settle down, Mary is torn between love and her dreams to go to Paris.
Till the unimaginable happens.
And life will never be the same again for none of them.

Partly the intelligent coming-of-age story, partly the bittersweet chronicle of one true friendship, this novel is both the lovely holiday book with some pretty deep substance and the book to read when you are copying with the darker days.
Which is quite an accomplishment and the testament to both the emotionally intelligent author and to the one of the most important relationship in the life of any woman - the best friend.

I enjoyed this book. The characters were relatable and the story moved along and was entertaining.