I am delighted to be kicking off the blog tour for Ambulance Girls by Deborah Burrows. Deborah Burrows is a bestselling Australian author of fiction set during the Second World War. Although her previous books were set in wartime Australia, Ambulance Girls is the first in a new trilogy set during the London Blitz. Lily Brennan is an Australian girl who came to Europe looking for adventure. She was working as a nanny in Prague when the German occupation of Czechoslovakia began. Having witnessed brutal attacks on the streets particularly of Jewish citizens Lily makes her way to London and before long she is working as an ambulance driver. The work was not without risk and at times Lily puts her own life in danger to help others. Lily becomes close friends with her colleague; Jewish ambulance attendant David Levy and feels aggrieved when some of her other colleagues make racist and anti-semitic remarks. When David disappears Lily is worried and asks his old school friend the dashing RAF pilot Jim for help to find out what happened to their friend. Ambulance Girls is a fantastic book, it's a mystery, a romance and a wonderful insight into war time life with excellent detail about how difficult it was dealing with food shortages and the genuine dangers faced by those who searched for bodies and survivors in the rubble of bombed out buildings. The casual racism and the snobbery and class division are also brilliantly highlighted. I am particularly intrigued by Lily's story because my great-aunt May was an ambulance girl during the Second World War who married her own dashing RAF man, so for me this book held extra special charm. I am delighted that it's the first of a series and I can't wait to read more. Ambulance Girls will make ideal reading for fans of Call the Midwife and the books of Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell or anyone with an interest in women's history and life on the home front during WW2. The blog tour continues tomorrow. Check the poster below for more details. Ambulance Girls is published in paperback by Ebury on 23rd February. Thanks to Josie Turner at Penguin Random House.
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