I enjoyed this one!

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Tessa Arlen and Dreamscape Audio for my advanced audio copy!

Things I Loved-

The Narrator- Madeleine Leslay . She is amazing. She really makes the characters come to life in this book.

The Premise- A murder mystery surrounding lady fliers. The women in this book are fiction but based off of real people.

The Characters- as in the previous book I really loved Poppy.
The lady fliers ( The Atta Girls ) were a nice addition.
Griff- is supposed to be a love interest / boyfriend but he still feels like a friend in this book. I'm not mad at it. I like him. I can't wait to see more of a relationship develop.

Overall- just as good as the first book. I highly recommend this series and can't wait for another installment.

A highly enjoyable story. Poppy is a plucky heroine who wants to do her best for her country during WWII by creating scripts for propaganda films. During her first assignment she encounters two suspicious fatal airplane crashes which she suspects may be something other than accidental. With the help of her perhaps boyfriend, American flyer, Griff, investigates the top women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary to determine what is happening before Great Britain loses another precious pilot and vital aircraft in their desperate battle for survival.

Arlen is very deft at using a group that performed important work for the war effort but perhaps a lot of people know little or nothing of and creating a good story and mystery. She has created interesting characters and I adore, Poppy, her dog and Griff. The narrator I thought was perfect for the voice of Poppy, good with some of the secondary characters, and could have had more differentiation on some of the minor characters. Though this is the second in the series it is not necessary to have read the first to understand this one but I would recommend reading it because it is another good read. Cheers to a hopefully long lived series!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the second book in Arlen's Poppy Redfern series. Each book is a new mystery but the personal relationships around Poppy grow with each book. This means that you will get much more out of them if you read them in order.

This instalment is based on the Air Transport Auxiliary of WWII, which was a group of women pilots that shuttled airplanes to Allied air bases as needed. Griff and Poppy get to travel to one of their bases and that is when mischief ensues. I can't say much or it will give spoilers. I heartily recommend the Poppy Redfern series!! I read the first one as a book and this one as an audio version. Both versions are well done, and the narrator is spot on. Thank you #NetGalley for allowing me to honestly review #PoppyRedfernAndTheFatalFlyers.

Hurray for Tessa Arlen! Not only has she created a series with interesting setting and a variety of characters, but she has also highlighted the contribution women made to the war effort. In the second book of the series, she takes Poppy to the “Attagirls” at an RAF airfield. Poppy is a scriptwriter for the London Crown Film Unit assigned to profile the women who ferried planes from factories to airfields during World War II. Luckily, her American fighter pilot boyfriend, Griff, is on a R and R and accompanies her to Didcote Airfield and adds a little romance to the story. Two crashes and deaths of the female pilots sets Poppy on a mission to find out who murdered them. The mystery is interesting but Poppy’s interviewing the women for the film brings the women to life by showcasing their bravery is what I found most fascinating. Madeleine Leslay’s narration is excellent. She is able to create individual voices for all of the characters, making dialogue easy to follow

This series is a delightful find! I have read other books by Tessa Arlen, but I missed out on the first of the Poppy Redfern books – and I’m so sorry about that! The writing is excellent, the mystery is well-formed and well-executed so you don’t guess who the villain is until the very end. There are lots of red herrings to keep you guessing. This book was so entertaining that I’ll now have to go back and read the first book in the series. Speaking of it being a series, this book can totally be read as a standalone – but I can promise you, you’ll want to go back and read the first book.

I listened to an ARC of the audiobook and I enjoyed the listen. The narrator, Madeleine Leslay, performed the narration with a tempo and voice that made me feel as if Poppy is a happy person who enjoys her life. She sounded very upbeat. I didn’t totally lose myself in the story because I did have a hard time differentiating among the speakers. They all sounded pretty much the same – every once in a while, the Scot would sound like a Scot, but the American never, ever, sounded like an American. So, I had to really concentrate to determine who was speaking. I’ll also mention that the American, who is also the masculine lead, was performed so that he sounded so prissy that I would have thought the part was female had the word ‘he’ not been used to describe him.

In late autumn of 1942, Poppy Redfern is settling into her new job as a scriptwriter at the London Crown Film Unit, which produces short films about valorous deeds performed by ordinary British citizens in wartime. She’s really excited to receive her first assignment, writing the script for a fifteen-minute film on a group of female pilots known as the Attagirls. These intrepid ladies fly every sort of aircraft to bases all over England. These ladies would much rather actually fly as part of the Royal Air Force, but England doesn’t allow female combat pilots – they barely allow these ladies to fly the planes around England. They perform a vital service – getting new planes from the manufacturer to the bases who need them as well as ferrying newly repaired planes back to their bases. Poppy cannot wait to meet these ladies.

Poppy’s gentleman friend, Griff, has seven days of leave and decides to go along with Poppy for a few days. Both Griff and Poppy quickly come to like and admire these brave ladies who fly in all sorts of adverse conditions without any of the basic safety devices regular combat pilots have. Their bravery and patriotism come through loud and clear. The six ladies they meet were the first recruited by the Air Transport Auxiliary and all of them are highly skilled and rated for most types of aircraft.

Poppy, Huntley (the producer), Keith (the cameraman), and Griff, all head for the ferry depot from which the Attagirls work. Poppy and Griff arrive first and Poppy sets about getting to know the ladies in order to begin the scriptwriting. She likes them very much and is excited to tell their tales. That excitement turns to horror when, one of the best pilots crashes and dies during a filming session. Everyone is immediately saying it was an accident and/or pilot error. Griff, who is a pilot, and Poppy don’t believe it to be an accident. They investigate more and more – they become more and more sure it wasn’t an accident. Without any proof, they cannot say anything – and when a second crash and death occur, they are sure both are related. When the powers-that-be decide that the crashes are ‘accidents’, and the filming session is drawing to a close, they know they have to quickly get some answers.

I absolutely adored Poppy and Griff – not to mention Bess, Poppy’s sweet little Corgi. Since I didn’t read the first book, I have no idea where Poppy and Griff left their relationship in that book. However, in this book, it is quite evident they care for each other. I’ll be so very happy to read the next book in order to see what mystery they get to solve and to see where their relationship goes next.

I voluntarily listened to and reviewed an Advance Audio Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.