An unputdownable drama from the bestselling author of The Girl With No Name. Wynsdown, 1949. In the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married and now feels settled in her adopted home after arriving from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war. Meanwhile, the squire’s fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. … returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming… and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphne’s past, but she has worked hard to conceal one that could unravel her carefully built life.
For Charlotte, too, a dangerous past is coming back in the shape of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care for him, but Harry’s return disrupts the village quiet and it’s not long before gossip spreads.
The war may have ended, but for these girls, trouble is only just beginning.
What readers are saying about The Married Girls:
‘Thoroughly enjoyed this book’
‘Three words: wonderful, captivating and enthralling’
‘I am so pleased I found this author’
‘Diney Costeloe at her best.
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Interesting read but felt that it didn’t really all tie together
This was a disappointing read. For most of The Married Girls, I debated whether to keep reading or call it quits. The story itself was rather meh for much of the book, plodding along, not so terrible or offensive that I felt compelled to give up, but barely holding my interest. Finally, some three-quarters of the way through, I was rewarded for my persistence: we had a truly interesting story! Only for Diney Costeloe to deliver one of the most frustrating, irritating endings I can think of. I nearly threw my Nook.
The set-up is this: Britain is finally emerging from the long shadows of World War II, with the war over, the blackouts done, rationing on its way out. Against this backdrop we meet Charlotte and Daphne, married respectively to Billy and Felix, and building new lives post-war.
Charlotte is a German Jew who arrived as a refugee on the Kindertransport and whose past threatens to overtake her in the form of Harry, who – somewhat confusingly – has an outsize presence in the first half of the book as the mouthpiece of an ailing mob boss, before Costeloe seemingly tires of him and sends him packing, quite literally. Although the set-up is that this is all hush-hush, none of this seems to be a secret from Charlotte’s husband. Her story takes a turn for the dramatic, which improves the entire book…until the end. More on that in a minute.
Daphne, on the other hand, is a piece of work, with more secrets than I can count, but one big one that, if revealed, will clearly cause he neatly constructed life as the Squire’s wife to unravel. For in Felix Bellinger, she has found a man with a title who can take her away from her beginnings in the East End, both literally and figuratively. Very early it’s clear that Daphne has no affection, let alone love, for her husband, and it’s this, as much as her secrets that threatens to overwhelm her at every turn.
Once events really begin to unfold, the story improves and does so until the final chapter which, instead of allowing the story to progress winds it up quickly, unsatisfactorily, and perhaps with an eye to a sequel. And although I liked Charlotte and don’t mind the idea of knowing how her story concludes, it’s not a sequel I’ll be reading.
Very interesting period -post war Britain
Not nearly as good as The Girl With No Name, bu I enjoyed reading it.
I thought I had accidentally opened the wrong book on my kindle! I was about 20-25% of the way through this book when it suddenly changed. I had been greatly enjoying a book about young women who had survived World War 2 in England and was disappointed when it changed to a completely different story. The “new” story was about a gangsters and the connection was that one of the gangsters had known one of the women several years before. Woven amongst his gangster exploits is his search for the women. But that gangster part got longer and longer and less enjoyable and then much longer and I finally just quit reading the book. It didn’t seem like it was every going to get back to the “Married Girls”.
This book had some unexpected twists and turns. It kept me engaged throught the entire book.
It was kind of all over the place through most of the book, too many characters that were bounced around back and forth. They all came together but it really wasn’t for me.
Interesting follow-up from the first book, The Girl with No Name. Hoping that the author, Diney Costeloe, will finish the story. I started reading WW11 books this last year and have enjoyed a fresh take on just how life has changed and yet it’s still the same. Interesting story line.
Interesting after I had read the first book.
I enjoyed reading about more of my favorite characters from previous books by this author. It’s enjoyable reading about another time in history, about family ties, and a mix of seriousness, happiness, suspense, and sadness, and how they come through all of these.
Enjoyed this book. Great characters. Good story.love without the sickening long sex scenes
I like WWII stories and this was not the best I’ve read but it was okay.
Couldn’t wait to see how it ended
Pretty slow.
I love the drama of everyday life in this small English village.
Absolutely the best book I’ve read in awhile. The writer is sensational. I am going to make sure I follow this author.
The times were my young life. Good to learn more about the war years and the women on the home front. I recommend this book to all, especially the young.
Weird story. The beginning was a sweet story about people in the English countryside in the 1940’s…and all of a sudden it goes into another whole other story about gangsters. I had to look to the prior page to see if I was still in the same book. After awhile it goes back to the original story. I have never read a book with 2 dissimilar themes. Very disconcerting. And then…the end of the story came abruptly. Like she got tired of writing or was going to stop there so she could write a sequel. I disliked the book so much…but I was determined to finish it to see if there was any connection between the gangsters and the lovely people but there was none that I could figure out. Weird!!!!!!!!!!!.
This is a continuation of The Girl With No Name but it is a stand alone book. Pretty good story, but maybe a little predictable. Was’t crazy about the ending since it just sort of stopped. Guess supposed to read book coming out next year?