She Goes to War

When Catherine, a teleprinter operator in the WRNS, is posted to the war-torn city of Liverpool, she meets Tom Lyddon. The usual stages of courtship are dispensed with, and the two begin an affair. But their idyll is soon to be shattered by the realities of war.

Readers of the Brother Cadfael series know Pargeter's insights into passion. In this elegiac, semi-autobiographical novel, she again shows this strength. Her narrator is of like quality. To say that Boyd masters Pargeter's sensibility and language is an understatement. She embodies the determination of the young Wren as she lives out WWII, expressing rueful sangfroid or raging protest. The epistilary format might have been unappealing, however suited to audio, but so committed is this presentation that we, ourselves, become the recipients of the letters. Their words of grim events in a grim time echo long after the tape is over. S.B.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine