Written by Elaine Spires⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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I should like to begin by thanking the author, Elaine Spires, for a free digital copy of her latest novel to review, and Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources for the invitation to join the blog tour for
A Village In The Country.
A Village In The Country.
The blurb:
But just as life returns to post-war normal, the London County Council announces its plans to build more than twenty-five thousand Homes for Heroes on the farmland and countryside surrounding Dagenham. Within the space of ten years the population will rocket to a hundred thousand people and the quiet country village will morph into the largest housing estate in Europe. For the families in Dagenham Village looking forward to better times in the 1920s, life will never be the same again.
Family Saga
Fiction
My thoughts:
I choose to read A Village in the Country - the first book I’ve read by Elaine Spires - because I grew up in a town which had grown from a village between the wars, much like Dagenham, and the blurb just resonated with me. Also, I really enjoy stories set during the early part of the twentieth century, a time I find particularly interesting, and especially those stories which take in the first and second World Wars.A Village in the Country is a well-written, engaging story centring on the lives of three women in the village, Elsie, Maudie and Milly. As the story begins, each of them is facing great change as the war is ending, and the some of the men folk are returning to reclaim their old lives and jobs.
Unmarried Milly is not going to go back to a life of domesticity and drudgery, looking after her father, sister and niece, and decides to set up her own business. Maudie’s husband was killed in battle, and has to work hard to keep a roof over her children’s heads. Elsie’s husband is missing presumed dead, so she too needs to work hard to keep her family. This is the story of everyday life in a close-knit community, soon to become a town with the building of 25,000 homes for families relocating from London.
I thought A Village in the Country started rather slowly, but there are a lot of characters to take in, and once I was acquainted with the main characters, I found the story really took off, and had me hooked.
I thoroughly enjoyed this compelling story, and very much appreciated the historical details which authenticate the period in which it is set, and I would wholeheartedly recommend this story to readers who enjoy a between-the-wars saga.
| Author Bio – Elaine Spires |
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 Elaine Spires is a novelist, playwright, actress and theatre director. In spite of travelling intensively and living in several countries - Spain, Greece and Antigua - she remains a proud Dagenham Girl and in 2017 returned to her roots. Elaine developed an eye for the quirky characteristics of people as she travelled, captivating the humorous observations she now affectionately shares with her readers in all her books. As well as the books listed below, Elaine has written several one-act plays and also the stage adaptation of her novel Singles’ Holiday which was performed at the Brentwood Theatre by Melabeau Productions. She wrote the Antiguan TV Series Paradise View for HAMA TV and Films and in 2019 her short film (co-written with Veronique Christie) Only the Lonely won the Gaucho Club Best Short Film Award and two silver awards at WOFFF (Women Over Fifty Film Festival) in the same year. Elaine hopes you will enjoy looking further back in time with this book, to an era when Dagenham was simply A Village in the Country. Also by Elaine Spires and available in paperback and on Kindle from amazon.co.uk
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| Social Media Links – | |
| https://instagram.com/elainespiresauthor | |
| Facebook Author Page | https://facebook.com/ElaineSpiresAuthor |
| X | https://twitter.com/ElaineSWriter |
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