The Land Girls
by Victoria Purman
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Pub Date Apr 15 2019 | Archive Date Apr 22 2019
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Description
A moving story of love, loss and survival against the odds by bestselling author of The Last of the Bonegilla Girls, Victoria Purman.
It was never just a man's war...
Melbourne,1942
War has engulfed Europe and now the Pacific, and Australia is fighting for its future. For spinster Flora Thomas, however, nothing much has changed. Tending her dull office job and beloved brother and father, as well as knitting socks for the troops, leaves her relatively content. Then one day a stranger gives her brother a white feather and Flora's anger propels her out of her safe life and into the vineyards of the idyllic Mildura countryside, a member of the Australian Women's Land Army.
There she meets Betty, a 17-year-old former shopgirl keen to do her bit for the war effort and support her beloved, and the unlikely Lilian, a well-to-do Adelaide girl fleeing her overbearing family and theworld's expectations for her. As the Land Girls embrace their new world of close-knit community and backbreaking work, they begin to find pride in their roles. More than that, they start to find a kind of liberation. For Flora, new friendships and the singular joy derived from working the land offer new meaning to her life, and even the possibility of love.
But as the clouds of war darken the horizon, and their fears for loved ones - brothers, husbands, lovers - fighting at the front grow, the Land Girls' hold on their world and their new-found freedoms is fragile. Even if they make it through unscathed, they will not come through unchanged...
A Note From the Publisher
media for nearly thirty years as an ABC television and radio journalist, a speechwriter to a Premier, political adviser, editor, media adviser and a communications and marketing consultant. She is a regular guest at writers festivals, has been nominated for a number of readers' choice awards, has mentored other authors and was a judge in the fiction category for the 2018 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Mass Market Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781489273970 |
| PRICE | A$29.99 (AUD) |
Featured Reviews
Shelagh M, Reviewer
I love reading about Australia’s history, but more from a perspective of “what was life like for people living in that time” than “what happened on which date. I also have a fascination for our wartime history. After all, my grandparents served in World War One and my parents in World War Two. These are among the reasons I was so thrilled to receive an ARC of The Land Girls.
This story did not disappoint. Viewed through the eyes of three very different women, mid 1940’s Australia unfolded before me. I could easily imagine the backbreaking effort involved in pulling flax or harvesting grapes and the cuts and scrapes from picking cherries or apples or perhaps pruning trees. It is very clear that this was no stroll through the vegetable patch, but rather serious hard slogging in often unpleasant conditions.
The Land Girls is not just a glimpse at Australian wartime history. There are personal stories interwoven through this book, and Flora, Betty and Lilly are very real people with very real worries, hopes and dreams. The book also takes readers out into the Australian countryside from the Adelaide Hills to Mildura on the banks of the Murray River and Batlow on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range.
The story is well paced allowing readers to absorb the lives of its characters yet move forward to see what will befall them next. I liked that little bits of adversity were dropped onto the pages whenever I was getting comfortable with the setting, ensuring my loyalty to the characters and my enthusiasm to see how things would end.
For anybody looking for a darned good Australian historical fiction with a dash of romance all I can say is look no further. And if you’d just like to get a glimpse of life in wartime Australia but can’t be bothered doing all the research that Victoria Purman has done then this is the book for you. Loved it!
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