#BlogTour ‘The Patchwork Girls’ by Elaine Everest

About the book…

1939. After the sudden and tragic loss of her husband, Helen is returning home to her mother’s house in Biggin Hill, Kent – the one place she vowed she’d never go back to again.

Alone and not knowing where to turn, Helen finds herself joining the local women’s sewing circle despite being hopeless with a needle and thread. These resourceful women can not only make do and mend clothes, quilts and woolly hats, but their friendship mends something deeper in Helen too. Lizzie is a natural leader, always ready to lend a helping hand or a listening ear. Effie has uprooted her life from London to keep her two little girls away from the bombing raids, and the sewing circle is a welcome distraction from worries about how to keep a roof over their heads and about her husband too, now serving in active duty overseas.

When the reason for Helen’s husband’s death comes to light, her world is turned upside down yet again. The investigating officer on the case, Richard, will leave no stone unturned, but it’s not long before his interest in Helen goes beyond the professional. As she pieces together old fabrics into a beautiful quilt, will Helen patch up the rifts in her own life?

The Patchwork Girls by Elaine Everest is a moving story about the ties of friends and family, set during the turbulence of the Second World War.

My thanks to Courtney at Ed PR for the blog tour invite, and gifted paperback review copy of ‘The Patchwork Girls’ which is a bit of a relief, I think, for those readers/subscribers who are seeing their inboxes filled with my horror related reviews!

So , away with bodies down wells and killer mists, and let’s take a look at a real feel good read, to which many readers can probably relate-moving back home after a period away can feel dislocating and also engender a feeling of ‘failure’.

So when Helen has to go back to her home village, in Kent, how can she begin to make a life for herself, when such a huge part of her heart is missing?

Balancing the need to be independent whilst really not wanting to do so, Helen throws herself into joining the local woman’s sewing circle, and whilst she patches together fabric, she is actually sewing together friendships with careful stitches, snipping away at the edges of her wounded heart and patching a new way forward.

Here she meets a fabulous array of people from all walks of life, as I can imagine a lot of readers thinking they would rather stick their hands in a mangle than sew . Personally, I find it a wonderful mindful past time, and especially when fixing old clothes to give them a new lease of life. And, in the absence of being able to physically fight, although it is a distracting activity, it does contribute to the war effort.

I can well remember my mother unravelling school jumpers, knitting them up in a bigger size, sometimes with slight shade variants due to adding in a new wool, or making my trousers last longer by letting them down. My suggestions to my daughters who are growing at an astonishing rate, that I add fabric to their jeans and turn them into bell bottoms, was not met with approval, despite there being many instagram posts to the contrary! Upcycling, reliving experiences as you fix a much loved item, or tucking a child in under a quilt made with love, from loved clothing, is such a wonderful feeling and shows how skills are passed down, through family lines.

In 1939, which feels not really that far away, the friendship and comradery between women kept them stoic in the face of abandonment by their partners, and I think this comes across so very well. The war is lurking in the background, a constant reminder no matter how happy the women are, it is a safe place for women like Effie who have come to Kent to keep her daughters out of harms way. And whilst it feels relatively safe in the countryside, at the start of the book, how long will it take before it begins to reach out to those in the countryside?

A heart-warming story of escapism, resilience and the bond between women in the face of adversity, Elaine welcomes you into her world and you feel that there is a satisfactory glow which surrounds you when you finish her novels. Thank you, Elaine, for another story which is great for snuggling up with (under a patchwork blanket, of course!) as the autumn nights draw in!

The Patchwork Girls by Elaine Everest is out now, published by Pan Macmillan in paperback original, priced £7.99

About the author…

Elaine Everest is the author of bestselling novels ‘The Woolworths Girls’, ‘The Butlins Girls’, ‘Christmas At Woolworths’ and ‘The Teashop Girls’. She was born and raised in North-West Kent, where many of her bestselling historical sagas are set. She grew up listening to tales of the war years in her hometown of Erith, which has inspired her own stories.

Elaine has been a freelance writer for 25 years and has written over 100 short stories and serials for the women’s magazine market. She is also the author of a number of popular non-fiction books for dog owners.

When she isn’t writing, Elaine runs The Write Place creative writing school in Hextable, Kent. She now lives in Swanley with her husband, Michael and their Polish Lowland Sheepdog, Henry.

Links-https://www.elaineeverest.com/

Twitter @ElaineEverest @ed_pr @panmacmillan