Cover Image: The East End Girl in Blue

The East End Girl in Blue

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I don't usually read historical fiction, but this one was an interesting read that was worth my time. The only critique I have is that the main character felt wishy-washy and not fully formed or fleshed out. I wanted to learn more about her motivations and decision-making processes. Other than that, it was a wonderful read.

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I really enjoyed this story. Nancy was a great character and I liked how she was able to bounce back from life’s challenges. She was such an inspiration.

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I love a good historical fiction especially set in WWII era. This one did not disappoint, I throughly enjoyed this well written and well researched story. Although this is a stand alone, I do wish I would have read the first book before I read this one. The characters were well developed and likable and the story kept me engrossed from the beginning to the end.

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This was a brilliant read and is being featured on my blog for my quick star reviews feature, which I have created on my blog so I can catch up with all the books I have read and therefore review.
See www.chellsandbooks.wordpress.com.

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Another lovely wartime book from this author. Nancy is a great character and I love the way she picks herself up and gets on with life after her devastating blow, and I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series

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A sad at times book to read but an enjoyable one. There is despondency at first but at least Nancy gets hope. This is a wartime story and I do recommend that it is read because I was not disappointed.

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The East End girl in Blue is the second book from the serie "The girl in Blue".
I read the first one and enjoyed it.
This one is about Nancy who grew up in a poor neighboorhood in London. She works
for the WAAF and is about to marry but tragedy happens and she finds herself pregnant and
have to leave her job.
She finds a job in a small village where Jane familly, one of her best friend live.
Working for Doctor David Denny is going to change her life forever, contrary to her
David comes from a comfortable familly and when loves comes knock at the door of their heart
they have to fight against the fear of not being good enough for each other especially Nancy.

I liked Nancy's courage and perseverance also the fact that she learn to write and read with Dr Denny.
However there were time where I struggle with her indecision and constant change of mind regarding the
relationship.

Overall it's in interesting book and I would like to read the rest of the serie.

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Omg. I love this book!
The East End Girl in Blue is a fantastic historical read.
Nancy's life is turned upside down when she's left pregnant and alone, an unmarried woman.
Working in the war, her fiance is dead, she's grieving, and now she has a baby on the way.
The writing is fabulous, fully bringing everything to life.
The story is fitting of it's time and riveting throughout.
I definitely recommend this as one of your next historical romance reads.

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Call the Midwife fans are going to love Fenella Miller’s heartfelt, dramatic and emotional new saga, The East End Girl in Blue.

Hitler’s bombs might fall on the East End of London with alarming regularity, but even in wartime Nancy Evans continues to find reasons to be hopeful and cheerful. Despite of all of the hardships and sacrifices, Nancy is thankful for her job at the WAAF and for her beloved fiancé. Just days away from walking down the aisle, Nancy is on cloud nine – until tragedy strikes and her world is shattered into a million pieces.

The future looks bleak and uncertain for Nancy, who is single and pregnant. She has nowhere to go and nobody to turn to, however, could swapping her uniform for a pinny end up providing her with the happiness she had given up on? When she starts working for the handsome Doctor David Denny as his housekeeper, Nancy begins to feel hopeful for the first time in a very long while. The more time she spends with David, the more she finds herself drawn to him. But could a future for the two of them be possible when there are so many obstacles standing in their way?

As their feelings for one another intensify, David and Nancy soon realise that they cannot even bear the thought of spending the rest of their lives apart. But Nancy is not in Poplar anymore and in the countryside, not everyone approves of an East End Girl like her marrying a pillar of the community like the village doctor. Is David and Nancy’s love strong enough to withstand prejudice and adversity? Will the East End Girl in Blue finally get her happy ending? Or is there more heartache in store for her?

Fenella Miller has the storyteller’s gift and The East End Girl in Blue perfectly illustrates her ability to create absorbing and involving sagas that keep readers gripped from start to finish. Full of character and exquisite period detail, The East End Girl in Blue is an emotional saga about courage, resilience and love with a delightful heroine readers cannot help but warm to and cheer for.

Wartime saga fans looking for an atmospheric, dramatic and uplifting read are going to thoroughly enjoy Fenella Miller’s latest, The East End Girl in Blue.

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If you love a war time saga then this is a book for you. The story and characters are very well constructed and makes for a really good read. If there had been a few more hours in the day I would have sat and read it all in one go. I hope there will be more novels to come from this author as the writing would be well worth waiting for. 5 stars from me.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for this ARC

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The East End Girl in Blue by Fenella J. Miller is the 2nd book in The Girls in Blue series. I believe it is best to read the series in order. I thought this historical novel captured the time period and the feelings as well as the attitudes of the people. Women were strong during World War II. I am amazed at their can-do attitude and their ability to create meals from limited resources. Nancy Evans is a resilient woman whose whole life is changed in an instant. She had planned to work her way up in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Instead, Nancy finds her fiancé dead just before their wedding and she finds herself in the family way. She has no choice but to make a new plan. We experience what life is like in England during World War II. There are frequent bombings, evacuees, and rationing (food, petrol, clothing). Your home could be bombed at any minute which is a frightening thought. Doctors and other essential personal worked long hours. They would get little rest or time off. The author captured the experiences of the people in Great Britain during World War II. The East End Girl in Blue also talks about the struggles of evacuating families, the toll the war can take on a single mother, narrow minded people, and rampant gossip. I thought this book was well-written with realistic characters. I stayed up quite late to finish this historical tale. I like that we get to catch up with Charlotte and Jane. Jane’s story is told in The Girls in Blue and we will get Charlotte’s story later in 2021 in The Officer in Blue. I wish the author had provided a better introduction of our characters in the beginning. While I had read The Girls in Blue, I was confused in the beginning (it had been several months, and I have read over a hundred books since then). The story does contain British slang (most of the words can be discerned from the context) and some foul language. The East End Girl in Blue is an absorbing historical novel with an abundance of bombs, foodstuff scarcities, evacuated children, war rationing, a dashing doctor, fine friends, and an enrapturing romance.

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Anticipating your wedding vows especially when your wedding is only two weeks off is usually not a big deal, but when it’s wartime anything can happen. Nancy Evans is devastated when her fiancé who is a mechanic and you would think relatively safe from the bombs, that’s not what killed him.
She is distraught and ends up with her friends in-laws and meets Dr.David Denny.
Even though Nancy falls in love with him she feels she isn’t good enough.
How does a person get over there concerns about class stations?
The author tackles quite a few issues that still happen today that will affect young couples or even older people as well. It’s all about perception and the author does such a remarkable job about portraying it in the book that makes the characters believable.

I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.

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The East End Girl in Blue decent read, it's just not the most memorable WW2 saga I've read. As with the previous book in the series, I can tell a lot of research has gone into it. David and Nancy's relationship was a
little frustrating at times and I found Nancy a bit selfish. Overall, I am glad I read it and I'm interested in reading about Charlotte's story.

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If you love a romantic war novel, then this book won’t disappoint. We follow the life of Nancy whose life is literally blown to pieces and she is left pregnant. Unable to return home she heads for safety into the country where she meets a kind doctor who takes her in. This has a slight Pygmalion vibe to it as the doctor turns her from an East end girl into a well-spoken lady, but her heart of gold never changes. I found Nancy a very likable and loveable character and was rooting for her the whole way through. It is a lovely book that you can easily lose yourself in.

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I have been a fan of Fenella’s work for a while now. I haven’t quite caught up with everything that she has written but I have read several of her books and I have enjoyed every single one of them. I read the synopsis for ‘The East End Girl In Blue’ and it certainly sounded like the sort of gripping and emotional read that I have come to associate with Fenella. ‘The East End Girl In Blue’ is the second book in ‘The Girls In Blue’ series and what a cracking read it was too. I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The East End Girl In Blue’ but more about that in a bit.
I absolutely loved the character of Nancy Evans and I warmed to her from the very start. Before long I began to consider Nancy to be a friend of mine and I felt all protective towards her. Nancy is in the ‘Women’s Auxiliary Air Force’ (or WAAF for short). Her boyfriend is in the forces too and they make plans to marry. Not everything goes to plan and Nancy is left picking up the pieces and trying to rebuild her life. Will Nancy find the ‘happy ever after’ ending that she so deserves? Well for the answer to that question and so much more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves as I am not going to tell you.
I was drawn into this story from the very beginning and I as then taken on one hell of an emotional journey. To say that reading ‘The East End Girl In Blue’ became addictive is a bit like me saying that I like books- in other words a massive understatement. Part of the reason why I enjoyed this book so much is the fact that I loved the character of Nancy Evans and I had to keep reading to see how the story panned out for her. I would pick the book up only intending to read a couple of chapters to fil in the odd half hour but I would become so wrapped up in the story that I would still be sat there reading over an hour and several chapters later. I had mixed feelings about this story. I wanted to finish it because I needed to know how this story concluded but I was enjoying the story so much that I just didn’t want the story to end. I found ‘The East End Girl In Blue’ to be an emotional and gripping read, which kept me on the edge of my seat.
‘The East End Girl In Blue’ is superbly written but then I have come to expect nothing less from Fenella J. Miller. She certainly knows how to grab your attention and draw you into what proves to be a compelling story. Fenella certainly writes stories that never fail to pull on the heartstrings. I love the very vivid and realistic way in which Fenella describes the conditions of the day. I haven’t got any grandparents so reading books such as this one is the closest I am going to get to knowing what conditions were like during the Second World War, when my grandparents were young. For me, the story in ‘The East End Girl In Blue’ hit the ground running and maintained a gentle pace throughout.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The East End Girl In Blue’ and I would definitely recommend it to other readers. I will definitely be reading more of Fenella’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

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The East End Girl in Blue
This is the second instalment of the #GirlsinBlue books. Here we catch up with Nancy Evans, who as a member of the WAAF finds herself based in Hornchurch where coincidentally her fiancé Tommy is based. He works on the maintenance of the spitfires. Tommy and Nancy are due to be married in two weeks, but as the Battle of Britain begins they decide to live in the moment and both apply for a 24 hour pass and book into the local B&B as Mr and Mrs Smith.
The doll day both Tommy and Nancy returned to base to resume their work but as the bombs raged above them disaster was lurking, Tommy was struck trying to save a pilot who had crash landed. Nancy was devastated, the man she was due to marry in two days time was dead.. Here is where the story takes off, Nancy discovering she’s expecting a child has a hard road ahead for herself.
This is a wonderful story which doesn’t shy away from the hardships people endured in wartime Britain.
I really enjoyed it and I think anyone who likes this genre will not be disappointed.
Thanks to #NetGalley for an ARC of this lovely book #TheEastEndGirlInBlue #Aria #AriaBooks #Ariafiction

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What a lovely second instalment, and a worthy sequel to the first!

Nancy Evans feels at home in the WAAF; she is gaining experience and promotions and, to top it all, she has her Tommy and their wedding is looming. Until one night of heavy and calamitous bombing changes everything. Finding herself pregnant and alone, Nancy leaves the service and looks for work elsewhere, ending up as a housekeeper to David Denny, local doctor and handsome with it. Although she tries to cope with her problems alone, it's not long until David becomes a trusted friend and support. While Nancy is very happy with the rural life she is carving out for herself, it's not long before the wagging tongues of a small village get gossiping but David doesn't care about that - or does he?

I really enjoyed the first in this series where the main focus of three friends was Jane; this time around it is Nancy's turn - and what a story she has to tell! It's a stark reminder of how the class system affected ordinary folk and how the second world war changed things. Nancy is a beautifully drawn character, full of goodness and gumption. Both main characters are damaged souls who are doing their best with the hand life has dealt them and I was silently cheering for them all the way through. This is a packed tale, with lots going on and plenty of twists and turns along the way. An enjoyable, engaging read and I'm already looking forward to the next one. Fenella J Miller never disappoints and this is a novel I'm happy to recommend to all lovers of wartime sagas. 4.5*

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The East End Girl in Blue by Fenella J. Miller
Publication Date: May 6, 2021
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Description from NetGalley...
“As the war rages on around her, one girl in blue's life is about to change forever...

Even in wartime, East End girl Nancy Evans has reason to hope. She's a rising star in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and she'll be walking down the aisle any day now... but then a brutal night of bombing changes her life forever.

Newly pregnant and single, Nancy swaps her blue uniform for a pinny, taking on housekeeping duties for handsome village doctor, David Denny. And though Nancy tries to stay cheerful and contribute to the war effort in any way she can, it isn't long before she finds herself leaning on David for comfort...

The countryside is a world away from the home she grew up in, and Nancy soon learns not everyone approves of her Poplar roots – or her romantic entanglement with David. But David doesn't care about where she comes from... does he?”
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Thank you to @netgalley @ariafiction for a digital ARC copy in return for my honest review.
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Thank you to @bookouture @fenellajmiller for inviting me to their book tour.
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My thoughts...
A WWII historical fiction. What I liked were the inclusion of real locations, historical facts and the story of struggles all over the book. They helped further educate of how much the war impacted everyone. There were also a few side stories because it is part of the series, though very much works as a stand-alone. A quick read.

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Lovely historical fiction about two people who meet by chance and heal one another. WWII was especially bad in the East End but Nancy found herself working in the Officers Mess at Hornchurch Air base. That's where she met Tommy and falls in love. Unfortunately, he's killed, and she's left alone and pregnant. Dr. David Denny's wife is also dead and he's been struggling. Nancy goes to work, for him and slowly they warm to one another. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a fine read.

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Set in WWII, the East End Girl in Blue tells a story that many young women lived as their fiancees went to war and never returned. After Nancy is faced with the prospect of being a single parent, she moves to the country where she meets Dr. Denny and begins working for him. This is a wonderful romance that will leave many happy.

Thank you NetGalley and Aria for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

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