Dear Mrs. Bird

Dear Mrs. Bird is a lighthearted take on a brutal time: life in London during the blitz. Emmy Lake is a girl with serious pluck, and when she lands her dream job in journalism, she is a woman on the make, dreaming of her life as a war correspondent. Unfortunately, she's forgotten to ask any questions at her job interview, and only learns that the new job is not, in fact, at the London Evening Chronicle, but at a little-known ladies' weekly, whose fierce Editress, Mrs. Bird, also writes the advice column.

Mrs. Bird wouldn't deign to let any Unpleasantness into her column, though, and has a long list of Unmentionable Topics; any letter that veers into even questionable territory is to be summarily cut up. Emmy feels a genuine sympathy for many of these women, and plots to answer their most personal queries with her own experience, and the advice a few friends. The results are predictable, which doesn't make them any less comical.

What AJ Pearce does so deftly is weave this lighthearted tale with the nightly air raids and war time troubles, in general. Emmy and her flatmate Bunty are spunky, fun protagonists, characteristics they share with Dear Mrs. Bird.

Four-and-a-half stars.