Under the Apple Tree — Lilian Harry

Another wonderful wartime saga from this much-loved author.

Portsmouth, January 1941. When the Luftwaffe unleashes its full fury on the city in the first of three major blitzes, the Taylor family are bombed out. Judy finds her job relocated from the gutted Guildhall to a hotel in Southsea, and home is now a small terraced house in April Grove, with one fewer bedroom and no bathroom or inside lavatory. And then there is the news she has been dreading: her sailor fiancé has been killed.

Judy and her young, recently widowed aunt Polly decide to turn their grief to good account and join the WVS, running canteens, accompanying evacuee children and helping the families of servicemen, often in the face of danger from air raids, flying bombs and V2 rockets.

Gradually, Judy and Polly find their own grief healing as they take part not only in their war work but in the life of April Grove, and although both are at first convinced they will never know love again, they both find it in the least likely manner.