Posted at Goodreads by Wendy Steele
Mona Dingwall is the elder sibling to her brother Ambrose and lives with her family in a row of tiny terraced houses in Salford in 1935. His meeting and befriending of Kathleen Teal, begins a feud between Mona and Kat that lasts through the war and beyond.
Throughout the book Burrough includes references, products and advertising that describe Britain between, during and after the World Wars. Language and dialect are contemporary with each era. Life during this time is graphically described, evoking the smells, sounds, fear and destruction during the Blitz and the long years of rationing that followed.
Mona and her family are beautifully described, against the ever changing background of world events. I loved Sissy and Ginny!
This is a well-written and well-constructed book, following the lives of two women in their search for acclaim on the stage and the families and circumstances that aid or thwart them. For most part, I enjoyed the writing style, happy to look up words in the dictionary, but my only criticism is that sometimes, the descriptions were so long and full of so many long words, I forgot what they were describing! There were fabulous, magical descriptions and phrases but I felt they were sometimes lost in too many words as they didn't shine out as they should.
This is a recommended 5* read for those enjoying historical, well-written fiction.
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