About the book…
Will love bloom in a new city?
It’s 1938, and Cadi is chosen to be Rose Queen in the annual Rose Fete. She is thrilled to be treated like royalty for the day. But deep down she is desperate to leave the Welsh mining community where she grew up.
When war is declared, Cadi and her best friend Poppy see a chance to escape. Cadi leaves behind her parents and local boy Aled, whom she is meant to marry, for Liverpool.
But city life doesn’t bring the opportunities they’d hoped for. Unable to join the forces, the girls are left looking for work in poverty-stricken Scotland Ward.
They secure jobs in a local pub, and Cadi’s blossoming relationship with a handsome dock worker deepens after he rescues her from a terrifying encounter.
But when Aled unexpectedly appears dressed in RAF uniform Cadi finds her worlds colliding again. Now the Rose Queen must decide: who will become her King?
Many thanks to the lovely Marie-Louise from Penguin Random House who kindly sent me a review copy of The Rose Queen
Published in e-book, hardcover and audiobook from the 6th January, I was very excited to be able to kick start a year of reading with this novel!
A different type of read from those I normally lean towards, this was a delightful break from one world inhabited by horror, to another, more real one, set at the start of the second World War.
Two young girls, with minimal life experience, try to do their civic duty and sign up to join the war efffort. For Cadi and Poppy, being chosen as the village Rose Queen is as far their ambition goes. These are two young women woth social and cultural restrictions on their ambitions, career prospects, and any decisions which they make will be immediately judged and weighed on the moral scale of village sensibilities.
The village in which they have grown up is very insular and protected, there is a path expected of them which they step off of when they embark on the journey of a lifetime to Liverpool.
This port came under constant fire during the war and is a neat metaphor for the bombshells dropping around them as they try to make their way in a place which could swallow their homestead many times over.
It looks , in a gentle and unobtrusive way at the way a woman’s rights to cultural and bodily autonomy were decided for her, even before she gained the voice to challenge this narrative.
And then, romance rears its head, and a whole new world of challenges open up to the girls…
Their lives in Liverpool could not be more different that where they have run from, they meet Maria, single handedly running a pub, and this gives them hope that without a man around, they can still stand on their feet. Cadi and Poppy may have a Rhos sensibility, but opening their eyes to the outside world gives them choices-will they remain the girls who want to be remembered for competing at the Rose Queen festival, or do they want to become women of the world?
Dockers, city workers, the hustle and bustle of city life at this time are so vividly rendered, and coming from South Wales myself, I can easily believe that there were, and still are, those for whom a valley is their entire world. Everything they need is there, so why leave and unsettle things? Well follow Cadi and Poppy as they set out into a world which is tumultuous, challenging and so very vibrant compared to what they have been used to.
Will they stay or will they return to Rhos? And if they do, what lessons will they have learned?
An easy and gentle read which is also thoroughly absorbing, I am so grateful to Marie-Louise at Penguin for introducing me to Katie’s novels!
About the author…
Katie Flynn, Sunday Times bestselling author, lived for many years in the North West. A compulsive writer, she started with short stories and articles, with many of her early stories broadcast on Radio Merseyside.
She decided to write her Liverpool series after hearing the reminiscences of family members about life in the city in the early years of the Twentieth Century. She also wrote as Judith Saxton. For the last few years of her life, Katie had to cope with ME but continued to write with the help of her daughter, Holly.
Sadly, Katie passed away on 1st January 2019, but had already begun working with Holly on upcoming books. It was Katie’s wish that Holly continued the Katie Flynn name.
Author
bridgeman.lenny@gmail.com