The Orphan's Secret Library by Glynis Peters

 UK, May 1943: Alice Carmichael becomes homeless at seventeen when the house of her grandmother is bombed, losing her protector and safe space. As a child, she grew up surrounded by books and her natural instinct leads her to taking a few books she could carry with her.

As she finds new shelter, she finds new guardians, friendship and discovers a new purpose in life. She becomes a postwoman at Billingford who sets up a mobile library, which later extends to a village library and her secret war work.

Alice’s new location is close to an airbase housing American Airforce. She meets an American airman and tries to balance love with her secret mission, which leads to some tensions.

Alice is almost eighteen when she falls in love and receives her first advice about men. Throughout the story, she writes in her diary revealing her thoughts which also involve her feelings toward a man.

As devastating war is, this story demonstrates how one can still find purpose and love; and the resonating fact of the written word that has the power of transporting one to a different place bringing healing, solace, and hope. The story reveals the lost lives of the men who worked at the Norfolk airbase and pays honors to those young men who some of them left the airbase for a mission and never returned.

The story is written with simple prose and carrying a voice of a young person with an engaging thread.

Released in November 2024

Source: One More Chapter; Harper Collins