This is a wonderful story which quickly gets your attention. The main character, Maggie, is delightful and courageous. The setting in a manor house outside of London during WWII is beautifully described and you can’t wait to find out what happens next.

An entertaining easy read about Maggie, who escapes her tyrant father when her new job is relocated to the relative peace of the Cotswolds. It brings together several strands of social history, different perspectives on what to expect from life and a chance for happiness for several characters. I particularly enjoyed meeting Rudi, the kinder transport child and thought this book had a new slant on a wwII tale. 3*

A Wartime Secret was a pleasant escapist read, set in 1940 and following Maggie, a young woman from the East End of London, who finds her new job at a bank unexpectedly relocated - due to obvious bombing fears - to a country house in the Cotswolds, home of the bank's owner.

As per the title, Maggie does have a secret - her mother is German and has been interned. With anti-German sentiment running high among the general public, Maggie is understandably wary of imparting this information to her new colleagues, but her German language skills will, as it turns out, come in quite useful...

Romance, too, is in the air - or is it? - with the arrival on the scene of a handsome airman who seems particularly interested in Maggie.

This was an enjoyable read with nicely drawn characters - aside from the whole German mother issue, working-class Maggie feels a bit of a fish out of water among her new, largely middle class colleagues, and this is believably done. Newly promoted Ray, too, has his issues to contend with.

Many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

From the moment we crash into plucky, kind-hearted Maggie on the top deck of a bus in WW2 London, we know we are in for a treat. The heroine in A Wartime Secret soon has plenty on her mind - a missing mother, a younger sister evacuated to goodness knows where - and a relocation to a country estate for herself, when her titled banker boss removes his London staff to safety.

The country estate relocation is a great idea. It brings cockneys and the titled together 24/7 and lets us feel what it was like to live in WW2 times, without the aching sadness of being in the midst of fighting or bombing. Whilst the plot throws up plenty of twists (and some pleasingly teasing romances too) it is the humour and spot-on period detail that makes this such a satisfying, engrossing book.

Put simply, A Wartime Secret is great fun to read. There’s high drama too of course - the novel starts in bombed out London, after all and some characters do face peril - but it is never depressing and it is the relationships between key people that takes centre stage. Plenty of dialogue means we get to know how they think really well. We may not like them all - or how they treat heroine Maggie. But that’s ok - it makes us root for Maggie all the more!

Helen’s warm, clear writing style gave me confidence that the ending would be uplifting - and it was. At one point, Gwen, a well-drawn minor character, unravels her late husband’s jumper, to reuse the wool for the war effort. Author Helen skilfully gathers up all her ‘wool’ via an array of subplots to knit together a hugely satisfying story. Highly recommended.

This is an easy read, but nothing very much happens, to be honest. It’s not the best WW2 novel I’ve read, I found the dialogue clunky and unconvincing, and the characterisation is a bit weak. I got no real sense of Maggie, so found it hard to care about what happened to her.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

Powerful, emotional story. Sarah lives with her dad and younger sister Violet after their mother is taken away by military police due to her being German. Violet is sent to the country with other evacuees. Sarah decides to apply for a job in the bank. Shortly after starting work the bank decides to take all it’s staff to safety at Snowden Hall. Sarah has tried to hide her parentage, will she keep it secret!
There are distractions put in her way.
This was a most enjoyable, easy read. First time with this author, will look out for more.

This fascinating untold story, inspired by real events, tells of a bank that was moved to a country house for the duration of WW2.

Paralleling a real-life relocation during war, the author shares a fascinating story of the family driven by the need to protect their bank and assets from the London air raids who move out of their elegant mansion and allow the bank to take over.

Eighteen-year-old Maggie Corbet from humble East End beginnings is excited about her first day on her new job – that is until a bomb raid makes her late for work! With her mom gone, Maggie’s dad becomes obnoxious and stubborn and refuses to give her any freedoms. This move to the bank in the countryside is her big chance. Maggie adjusts well and soon garners male attention. You’ll have to read to find out if Maggie can balance this with the stress of a new job, the disappearance of her mother and the uncertainty surrounding her sister’s situation. Will it cause her to crack and reveal the secret that she knows will turn opinion against her?

Using three different points of view, accurate language and appropriate social status behaviours, the author blends fact and fiction so seamlessly that readers are left spellbound. The tension and stress of life under constant air raids is felt by the reader as well as a young person’s elation at living life on their own terms. The pull in both directions makes for an interesting narrative. This balance is topped off with the ever-present wartime uncertainty and the knowledge that family are unaccounted for and communication is cut off.

Based on Upton House and Walter Samuel, the second Viscount of Bearsted, this little-known event has been forgotten by history and is a fascinating read for historical fiction lovers.

I was gifted this advance copy by Helen Yendall, HQ Digital and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

I really enjoyed this book. I spent most of the book transported back to 1940 in the Cotswolds and a much simpler time, where evenings were spent playing Monopoly, listening to the radio or down at the village pub.
The story is told by three different characters, although Maggie is the main voice. I liked this style as for example Maggie was envious of Joseph's marriage but when Joseph spoke we saw the true state of the marriage.
I felt the book was very well observed, especially the banter between the girls, it made you feel like you were sat in the room with them! The main characters were well developed and I really wanted them to be happy. I think the last quarter or so could have been drawn out a bit more as it did seem ever so slightly rushed. I would have liked to have known more about what happened to one of the characters in London as I was quite attached to them by that point!
This book gripped me from the start and I read it in a day. If you like WW2 fiction, Downton Abbey and anything that warms your heart then I would highly recommend it.

This is an easy to read novel set in WW2 and evoking the speech and social status of the time. We follow a young girl who is isolated from her family by the events of the war, struggling to fit into her new environment whilst trying to find out what has happened to her younger sister and mother.

Firstly thank you Netgalley for this ARC if you love wartime and family saga you will love this book

Shortly after starting her new job at a bank, Maggie Corbett is transferred from bomb-damaged London to Snowden Hall in the Cotswolds - the bank's new, wartime base. As the newest employee, Maggie is apprehensive, especially as she is keeping a secret: Maggie’s mother is German and has been interred as an alien civilian. To make matters worse, Maggie is also concerned about her young sister, Violet, whose letters suggest that something may be wrong at Vi's evacuee billet.

Despite her East End roots, Maggie quickly adjusts to life in a grand mansion, and eventually finds a way to use her German language skills to her advantage.

This is an enjoyable and – at times – humorous story, which follows the fortunes of Maggie and her colleagues as they settle in to life at Snowden Hall. The characters are interesting, and Maggie in particular is very likeable. Although she is young, she knows how to stand up for herself and soon begins to draw the attention of two of the young men stationed at Snowden Hall.

Alongside Maggie’s story, I enjoyed the novel’s sub-plots and the underlying intrigues of life in the ‘big house’. The author has obviously done her research too. I found the historical details fascinating and thorough, without being a distraction to the story.

This is an entertaining, heart-warming novel that I can thoroughly recommend. I’ll definitely be looking out for more books from this author.

With thanks to NetGalley and HQ for providing an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.