This is the review I posted on Library Thing:
Reading stories written in epistolary form makes me yearn for the old letter writing days, though I don't think I'd have been thrilled to live in England during the last years of WWII. This book is a sequel to the first series of letters, which I haven't read, but I picked up the pace quickly enough.
It's a combination of tongue-in-cheek and stiff-upper-lip that only the English can master. Henrietta is a middle-aged doctor's wife. She is not the most conventional woman but she tries to carry on amidst the ridiculousness of wartime. She tends faithfully to a garden, puts up with evacuees and difficult neighbors, and finds solace in her friendship with the wonderfully full-figured and elderly Lady B.
It's my second Bloomsbury Group Early Reviewers book, and this one did not disappoint either. Even though there is some tragedy here and there, and a harrowing story of a cat and a mouse that echoed my own trials of last week, every letter ends on a cheeky high note.
From what I've read, the Henrietta stories were semi-autobiographical, a way for the author to cope herself. Hope it helped.
I finished this book last week, and in trying to think of a tea that would pair well with it today I kept coming up with herbals, since that's all I've been drinking due to a nasty head cold. Then I remembered a humourously illustrated scene in the book where a woman is bring an Evacuee staying at her home Blackcurrant Tea because they had a cold. She ended up taking a nasty spill on the stairs, ending up in a 'Crumpled Heap'. I'd hate to think of what happened to the teacup. So in sympathy to all involved, I'd say a nice Blackcurrant would do quite well, whether it's a black flavored or a tisane.
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