#BlogTour ‘A Christmas Wish At Woolworths’ by Elaine Everest

About the book…

Kent, 1953. The Woolworths Erith store, a beloved cornerstone of the community, faces closure if the December turnover fails to increase. And, as if store manager Betty Billington doesn’t have enough on her plate, personnel shortages and a troublesome new employee add to the strife.

With Christmas on the horizon, Betty and her staff must strive to find solutions to improve business and keep the store running – from special events for late-night customers to a festive group trip into central London. The Erith Players pantomime also promises to draw a crowd, injecting excitement into the local community.

With the store festooned with decorations, lifting the spirits of customers and Betty, can a Christmas miracle save their beloved store?

My thanks to Lucy at Pan Macmillan for the blogtour invite and my gifted copy of

‘A Christmas Wish At Woolworths’, by Elaine Everest which is out on October 24th from all good bookshops.

It has been a while since I caught up with the familiar names from Elaine’s series, but you dive straight back into the post war period where women are quite literally, doing it for themselves.

They are taking on management roles and leadership roles in their own enterprises, as well as familiar British Institutions as Woolworths, a place so many of us regarded as the corner stone of the community, and who mourned its loss in our local high streets.

Against this stage of a shop which provides anything and everything to the people of Erith, are a cast of characters which straddle the social strata, the story begins in  summer, introducing the family and friends who run Woolworths,

Their social standing is clearly an affront to the ‘upper echelons’ of Erith who disapprove mightily of the freedom allowed to the young women, including Betty, Bessie, Maisie and Claudette , and who draw battle lines of the turf of Alexandra Road.

Between them they own a fashion boutique, work for Woolworths and provide love, support and companionship to the younger generation of women they are raising and working with, which is why it seems so abhorrent to the older women who cling to pre-war values-such as not being an unmarried mother!-and their closeness through hard times only serves to accentuate the action of the story.

A new worker, about whom the girls have misgivings, is hired at Woolworths. She appears to be another casualty of war, with an invalid husband, but something about her just doesn’t sit right with Betty and Maureen. Their natural instinct to bring her into their warm clan of hard workers is troubled by an instinctive suspicion of Gloria-will they be proved right? Gloria’s snarky an rude attitude, and bullying of vulnerable characters like Dora makes you bristle with anger.

But with rebuilding the community of Erith in  an age of prosperity, comes change and some of it is very unwelcome indeed, especially as it heads towards the season of good will.

The center of this is Woolworths, and with the proposed demolition of housing in the are, will trade be driven away?

How will Betty manage with this devastating change to the town, will it bring more people in, or put her business under threat?

Ad whilst she is looking at the long term progression of the shop, someone close to home has very big ideas they want to put into place..

Christmas time, is , if anything, a time for coming together with loved ones, and for miracles and love to spread around!

A warm hearted and welcome return to the Woolworths girls ,this book is just a wonderful way to start your festive reading!

About the author…

Elaine Everest, author of Bestselling novel ‘The Woolworths Girls’ and ‘The Butlins Girls’ was born and brought up in North West Kent, where many of her books are set. She has been a freelance writer for twenty years and has written widely for women’s magazines and national newspapers, with both short stories and features. Her non-fiction books for dog owners have been very popular and led to broadcasting on radio about our four legged friends. Elaine has been heard discussing many topics on radio from canine subjects to living with a husband under her feet when redundancy loomed.

When she isn’t writing, Elaine runs The Write Place creative writing school at The Howard Venue in Hextable, Kent and has a long list of published students.

Elaine lives with her husband, Michael, and their Polish Lowland Sheepdog, Henry, in Swanley, Kent and is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Crime Writers Association, The Society of Women Writers & Journalists and The Society of Authors as well as Slimming World where she can be seen sitting in the naughty corner.

Twitter @ElaineEverest @panmacmillan @ed_pr

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