Letters from the Lighthouse: 'THE QUEEN OF HISTORICAL FICTION' Guardian

Description

We weren't supposed to be going to the pictures that night. We weren't even meant to be outside, not in a blackout, and definitely not when German bombs had been falling on London all month like pennies from a jar.February, 1941. After months of bombing raids in London, twelve-year-old Olive Bradshaw and her little brother Cliff are evacuated to the Devon coast. The only person with two spare beds is Mr Ephraim, the local lighthouse keeper. But he's not used to company and he certainly doesn't want any evacuees. Desperate to be helpful, Olive becomes his post-girl, carrying secret messages (as she likes to think of the letters) to the villagers. But Olive has a secret of her own. Her older sister Sukie went missing in an air raid, and she's desperate to discover what happened to her. And when a sneaky peek at a letter reveals a clue, she knows she'll have to break all the rules to find her.

Emma Carroll was a secondary school English teacher for many years. Letters from the Lighthouse is Emma's sixth novel; she has also written the highly-acclaimed Frost Hollow Hall, The Girl Who Walked on Air, In Darkling Wood, The Snow Sister and Strange Star. She lives in the Somerset hills with her husband and two terriers.