I liked this book a lot and I read it really fast.  I could not wait to find out what happened with the two main characters.  This historical fiction novel followed the formula of having two timelines.  That was the only formula one could say was applied to this novel. Louise in the past timeline and Cara in the present timeline had equally interesting stories and were tied together by Cara reading Louise’s diary kept in the years during WWII when England was under siege by the Germans.  Each lady had her own romance in this novel and toward the end, there is an enormous twist that is almost never seen in these types of books but was really good. The writing was well crafted and the plot advanced at a nice pace. I look forward to reading more by this author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this book. While it was somewhat predictable and at times unbelievable, I learned more about the gunner girls and it prompted me to do a bit of research on them.

This is the type of book that people will enjoy and will be a good book club selection!

Fans of stories centered around the Second World War won't want to miss Julia Kelly's The Light Over London. It's a dual timeline novel that tells the story of two women living years apart, each struggling with questions of love and self-worth, and I'm so glad I got a chance to read it.

Cara Hargraves is struggling to get back on her feet after a nasty divorce. She's found a job working for a local antiques appraiser, a job that allows her to lose herself in the past rather than looking forward to the future. Some people might find such work depressing, but Cara enjoys poking through old houses in search of hidden treasure, some of which might be of monetary worth. It takes her mind off her own unhappiness, and who wouldn't be in favor of that?

While on the job, Cara discovers a diary written by an unknown woman who appears to have served in some branch of the military during World War II. At first, she's only casually interested in the woman's story, but once she begins to read the diary in earnest, she knows she has to find out the identity of its writer.

In 1941, nineteen-year-old Louise Keene is living in a small village in Cornwall. The man everyone assumes she'll marry one day is fighting in the war, and Louise is at a loose end. Other girls might be content to sit home and wait for their sweethearts to return, but that's not enough for Louise. When she meets Lieutenant Paul Bolton, a pilot in the RAF, she begins to feel things she never felt for her wealthy but distant suitor. Suddenly, Louise begins dreaming of a new life, one filled with all the passion and adventure she's read about in novels.

When Paul's unit is deployed to an undisclosed location, Louise knows she must take action, and so she joins the women's branch of the RAF in an attempt to feel closer to Paul. Soon, she's one of an elite group of women known as the Gunner Girls, who are responsible for identifying enemy planes during air raids. It's a dangerous job to be sure, but Louise wouldn't trade the sense of purpose it gives her for anything, and whenever things get hard, she reminds herself that someday soon, she and Paul will be together forever. But when many of her letters to Paul go unanswered, Louise begins to fear for the man she loves.

The story shifts back and forth in time and perspective, allowing the reader to get to know both Cara and Louise. I initially found Louise's portions of the novel to be the most compelling, but as I continued reading, I discovered that Cara's story contained some lovely surprises. I loved the slow burn romance between her and Liam, and the relationship between Cara and her grandmother is a true joy to behold. Louise's chapters are definitely the most exciting parts of the novel, but I was not at all bored when the focus shifted to Cara.

Both Cara and Louise are wonderfully resilient heroines who are unwilling to let their circumstances get the best of them. I was especially drawn to Cara's quiet strength. She faces a lot of inner turmoil, but she manages to come out of it with a wisdom and sensitivity I don't often see in contemporary characters. She's far from perfect, but she learns from her missteps and doesn't continue making the same mistakes over and over again. By contrast, Louise is more flamboyant. She's determined to thrive in what is obviously a man's world, and the strife she endures is heartbreaking at times, but I never doubted her ability to come out on top.

My one major complaint has to do with a subplot involving Cara's grandmother. It's clear pretty early on that she has a secret, something that somehow connects her to Louise's diary. Cara really wants to know what her grandmother is hiding, but the older woman refuses to enlighten her until close to the end of the story. The secret is pretty huge, but parts of it didn't make sense to me. The details are quite sketchy, and part of me  wonders if the author might not have thought through this portion of the story as clearly as she needed to.

The Light Over London is a solidly enjoyable story that's sure to appeal to fans of books like Secrets of a Charmed Life and The Nightingale. It's Ms. Kelly's first novel, and I'll definitely be on the lookout for more of her work in the future.

Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Visit our Amazon Storefront

Thank you NetGallery for the opportunity to read and give a honest review of "The Light Over London."
I did enjoy reading this book. I was hoping there would be more WWII history. . I enjoyed the romance aspect between Cara and Liam.
The story revolves around Cara finding a diary written by Louise Keene which was written during World War II.
Nice light love story with mystery thrown in.

I'm a huge fan of dual timeline books AND of WWII fiction, so this book ticked all the boxes for me: historical fiction, romance, compelling characters - AND I learned a bit more with the Gunner Girl storyline.
While Cara's present day story was interesting, it was the WWII setting and Louise Keene's storyline that really sucked me in. She was a strong and pretty complex character, and the author paints a vivid (and bleak) picture of life both in Cornwall and London.

Strong women, secrets, the perils of war time romance - this book was hard to put down.

This is a more of a romance story than historical. I did enjoy the dual storyline and the glimpses of history. I've never heard of the Ack Ack Girls and am interested in learning more. My favorite character was Liam, the sweet next door neighbor. This an enjoyable story but I do wish there was more history included.

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly follows two very strong willed and determined women who never knew one another but whose lives interconnect on so many levels. One lived during WWII and the other today. Both have had heartbreak and survived, and come through their sadness stronger afraid of their futures but willing to take a leap of faith.

Louise Keen lived in a small English village in the 1940's. At the young age of 19 Louise feels trapped in her ordinary life. Afraid she will never experience life outside her village she takes a leap of faith and goes to a dance. There she meets a young Flight Lieutenant, Paul Barton. When his unit is deployed, Louise makes a decision which will forever change her life.

Cara Hargroves has just come out of a horrible marriage and lost both her parents in a terrible car accident. She and her grandmother Iris are the only family left. Still unable to truly deal with her parent's deaths, Cara decides she needs to start over and she too takes a leap of faith and moves closer to her grandmother and begins work at an antique shop. While sorting through a client's house, Cara finds the diary of a woman who lived in the 1940's. As Cara begins to read the diary she begins to realize that no matter what generation you have lived heartache, heartbreak and survival are all the same.

It becomes Cara's mission to find out who the diary belongs to and return it to its proper family. In the process by reading the diary she begins to heal herself as she takes the life lessons from the diary to heart. What happened to the woman after the last diary entry? Will Cara ever find out?

Secrets play an important role in the story. Some which should be taken to the grave and others which are buried in a different place...deep in the mind and the past.

The Light Over London is a love story, but its more than that. It's also a story of women's empowerment and not listening to people who say you can't succeed. A terrific read!

Thank you #NetGalley #Simon & Schuster #The Light Over London #Julia Kelly for the advanced copy. The book comes out January 8. Don't miss it!

Reading Light Over London brought back many memories of my childhood in the early forties. Although I grew up in the US, everyday life outside of London, seemed somewhat the same. The food rationing, blackouts, searchlights in the ski, and awareness of war everyday. The story of finding a lost diary and tracing it back was very interesting and page turning.

The Light Over London is a dual timeline story, in which Cara finds a WWII diary at one of the properties where she’s working with her antiques dealer boss, and becomes invested in identifying its author and what happened to her.

Cara has buried herself in work to avoid dealing with the grief and pain in her life recently. The diary gives her another outlet for distraction, and she tries to use its story to connect with her grandmother, Iris, who has always avoided talking about her time in the British service.

The author of the diary is Louise, a young woman who wanted more than her small town life. She fell in love then volunteered for the British service. The book alternates between Cara’s life now and Louise’s life during WWII.

The Light Over London is mostly a historical romance with elements of historical fiction mixed in throughout. I enjoyed it, but the romances which were on the lighter side, didn’t necessarily feel genuine. They seemed a bit hasty and/or too convenient, just not as believable as I would have liked. At certain points in the book, I preferred one storyline over the other - and this flip-flopped as the story progressed. As a whole though, I didn’t prefer one more than the other.

I started reading this, but found I could not slip into the world. I fear it is me, and will pick this up at a later date. Apologies.

Cara Hargraves is an antique dealer. While cleaning out the house of a woman who has recently passed away, she finds a diary. Her curiosity is instantly piqued and she is determined to find the person who wrote it and return it to them.

This story is written in dual time periods (present day and 1941). Present day is told by Cara whose search for the diary owner will open up old wounds and eventually bring much needed closure to multiple areas of her life. In 1941 Louise Keene is nineteen years old and works for Bakeford’s Grocery & Fine Food. She feels trapped by the small town she lives in and the expectations of her mother. One evening she attends a dance with her cousin Kate, where she meets a man who will change her life forever.

I love reading this type of historical fiction that has me running to the internet to learn more. In this book Julia Kelly tells us about the ATS girls – Auxiliary Territorial Service. It is the women’s branch of the British Army. When an aircraft is in sight they do everything necessary to shoot it down with one exception – they are not allowed to pull the trigger. That job is reserved for men only! This book did a fantastic job of highlighting an area in the army that I was unaware of. The bond these women shared was quite special. There were so few of them and they looked out for each other in an area that is dominated by men.

As fascinating as the ATS girls are this story is also a romance. I didn’t feel that is was overly romantic, but love is in the air and is woven into the storyline in both time periods.

If you love WWII fiction and don’t mind a bit of romance mixed in then this is the book for you!

3.5 Stars

While I enjoyed The Light Over London, I didn't love it like I hoped that I would, especially since I requested it because it is compared in the blurb to The Nightingale, which is one of my most favorite WWII historical fiction novels. I've made this complaint several times this year about books being marketed as either the wrong genre or indiscriminately compared to other books in the hopes that readers would pick them up because they were fans of those other books, and that's the case here since the only thing The Light Over London has in common with The Nightingale is both are set during WWII.

I think it had the potential to be a great story, but it was less historical fiction and more historical romance than I like so for me, at least, that took something away from the story, especially since Cara's romance in the current time period felt a bit contrived and unnecessary, and I wish the author had instead spent more time on the history of the gunner girls and Louise's role as one since their part in WWII was so extraordinary and so important! Also, my favorite character in the entire book was Cara's grandmother, and I would have loved it if her character had been fleshed out more...she was just fabulous!

This was a quick, enjoyable read but not one that I would read again. All in all, it's a perfectly lovely story and if you like romance novels or lighter historical fiction, then this might be perfect for you. However, if you are expecting a deeper and more profound WWII novel like The Nightingale and want your historical fiction to be more historical and less fluff, then you might want to skip this one.


**Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for an ARC to read in exchange for my fair and honest review.*

An absolutely endearing book about the London Blitz during WWII
and the girls of the ATS.
They met during training & remained close until the end of the War.All for one and one for all.
They were
together and helped one girl deal with more than she should ever have had too.
70 yrs.into the future a diary is found in an old tin box that was in a cupboard and discovered by a Shop Owner's apprentice,while getting an elder ladies Curiosities and Antiques ready for auction.
This is where the book really takes off going between the early 40's and back and forth between then and now.
You,'ll want to Read the book to learn how it all ties together and You'll find out,why you can't believe everything you hear,even back in
the 1940's no matter how badly you want too.
A great big thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to Read and review "The Light Over London."
It was a great historical novel and you'll.find yourself really involved in the drama.

Read this book in two days, waiting for it to be the caliber , of say, Nightengale- rehash of so many books with flashbacks to war time - Love story ridiculously predictable

3.5 stars

In this book we meet two woman of two different time periods. The first is Cara Hagraves, a young woman devastated from a current divorce who works with a antiques dealer classifying objects. The other is Louise Keene, a young woman who is stifled by her overbearing parents and looks for a way to escape their confines. She finds it by running away and then working as one of the ack ack girls during World War II. Both girls are trying to find a place where they belong, a place where they find their sense of self, a way to establish their natures.

Cara finds hidden in an old piece of furniture, a diary that once belonged to Louise and from those pages the story is drawn. As Cara searches to determine who Louise was, she discovers more about her own grandmother's place in the war. She is helped by a young man and the romance begins to bud as they draw closer to one another and the truth of what happened to these young woman thrown into the war effort.

This book offered an interesting look into the ack ack girls, but it was more of a romance story than an actual historical fiction novel. While I did like it, for it was an easy read, I did want more development on the historical side. It did however, encourage me to research more about the ack ack girls and for me that is what a good book often does.....inspires you to dig deeper.

Thank you to Julia Kelly, Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. Thanks also to the Traveling Sisters reading group who read along with me.

The Light Over London is an excellent book. It's tops from two perspectives: WWII and the present. Cara works in antiques and discovers a diary of a woman who served in the ATS. She unravels the mystery of the diary's author, while also trying to get her grandmother's war time service story. The narrative of Louise is compelling as is the truth about Cara's grandmother. I really thought, up until the end, Louisa's and Iris' stories would bisect in some way, but they didn't. I knew about the WRNS, but was not aware of the ATS women. It's a great story for WWI historical fiction fans.

A decidedly feminist take on the WWII story--a great reminder about the limited choices women of that era had, and how their parents had great control over their lives.
Fast paced with just enough detail.

When I saw that this was a time slip book about World War II, I decided I HAD to read it. I was not disappointed. It contains everything a good book should: no formulas, but mysteries, humor, and just a bit of romance.

Cara is helping her boss evaluate catalog the antiques in an estate for possible sale in his antique shop. In going through the pieces of furniture, Cara finds a diary dating back to 1942. It becomes an obsession for Cara to find the owner of the diary and find out the history and what happens after the diary ends.

It takes a lot of research and digging to find out the facts behind the entries in the diary. Cara finds help through her next door neighbor, Liam, and Liam finds friendship and more in Cara.

Julia Kelly has written a top notch novel that kept me up way past my bedtime. This is definitely a five star book, two thumbs, and a mysterious diary to stir up your imagination.

My thanks to Gallery Books for allowing me to read and review this book.

An intriguing story that takes place in the present and also in the early years of the second world war. While assisting in the valuation of an estate an appraiser finds a diary, from a young ATS volunteer, from the beginning of WWII. She is given permission to try and track the original writer, or her family, to return it to the family. The story by itself illuminates the hardship and realities of war in England and the life of the ATS volunteer who trained and served in an Ack-Ack squad protecting London. It takes the reader through the best and worst times of her young life. And with all good stories it has a great twist at the end.

I have rated this book 5 stars.

I received an ARC from Netgalley for my unbiased review.

The Light Over London takes place in present time then flashes back to Cornwall and London during World War II. Cara is newly divorced after losing both parents to a fatal car crash a few years before. She is starting in a new job, evaluating antiques for a demanding boss. As they are evaluating an estate, Cara finds a tin biscuit (cookie) box that contains the diary of a woman who lived in Cornwall in the 1940's. Cara becomes fascinated by the diary and is determined to find out who wrote it and return it to her family. Cara identifies with the author and devotes considerable energy and resources to discover her identity, hoping that will help her understand her grandmother's war experience and the secrets she keeps from Cara. She ends up enlisting the help of Liam, her handsome new neighbor who is a history professor. Liam offers valuable insight, friendship, and through working with him, Cara works through problems left from her messy divorce.

Cara's story is interspersed with entries from the journal and Louise Keene's own story.. We meet Louise in Cornwall where she lives with a domineering, unhappy mother and a loving and supportive father. Her cousin Kate invites her to a dance in a neighboring town where she meets Flight Lieutenant Paul Bolton and quickly falls in love. When Paul is shipped out, Louise can't take the small town life any more and heads out with Kate to join the ATS. She ends up being assigned to the Ack-Ack Girls and uses her considerable intelligence to work with a team to aim and fire anti-aircraft guns. Her relationship with Paul continues to grow, as does Lousie's self-confidence in herself and her abilities.

There are several stories unfolding in The Light Over London - all of them well-written and well-researched. Julian Kelly did a fabulous job - what could have been a tangled mess is an intricate, well-crafted story that was engaging and very entertaining to read.