Maggie Mason

It's not long since I read the first book in this trilogy, The Halfpenny Girls, so the characters of Marg, Edith and Alice were still fresh in my mind. Had that not been the case I would still have been able to pick up The Halfpenny Girls at Christmas and enjoy it as Maggie Mason always makes sure the reader knows what happened before.

Once again, I was whisked to Blackpool of the late 1930s to smell the sea air and the fish and chips that the girls eat copiously. I love this setting, the seaside being so alive with characters and life. As the book begins Alice is newly married and looking forward to her first baby with her doctor husband, Gerald. Edith is happy with Philip and is eager to start their life together. Marg's life is more unsettled with her poorly ma and gran with dementia. But they are the Halfpenny Girls and no matter what, they have each other and that gets them through.

Reading a Maggie Mason book is like having a warm hug. Even though she puts her characters through it there's always such friendship and love that it makes you feel you could cope with anything with the right people around you. Being set when it is, war is on the horizon and the girls will have a lot to cope with in the years ahead (and book three, The Halfpenny Girls at War, will cover that). I love reading about them and really hope for the best for them. I particularly enjoyed the progression of Alice and Edith in this book and it was interesting to see these strong women starting to take on new roles, particularly as they will be required to do that even more when their men go to war. I was also pleased to see Marg get a rare chance of happiness.

This book covers two Christmases and so is a lovely read for this time of year. I enjoyed being back in Blackpool again with these lovely folk.… (más)

The Halfpenny Girls is the name given to Alice, Edith and Marg, young women living in a poor area of Blackpool in 1937. They've been friends since childhood and always look out for each other through thick and thin. Each has their own problems at home with difficult family members and struggles to keep food on the table and yet there's a cheerful camaraderie between them that is unbeatable.

I absolutely loved this book. It's full of Maggie Mason's trademark warmth with characters to care about. As always there are ones to dislike too but they are often a product of their upbringing or lifestyle and the author portrays hard working class life brilliantly. Throughout the course of the book each of the girls has to cope with tragedy and revelations and as each is so lovely I was really hoping they would come out the other end relatively unscathed. This is the first in a new trilogy so I'm sure there's lots more to come for them in the future.

Mason always sets her books in her home town of Blackpool and the town feels like another character. It's portrayed so well and is really brought to life with the seaside town feel, the fish and chips and the rock stalls on the sea front. The girls go for a night out at the famous Tower Ballroom and it could well set at least two of them on a different future path. I can't wait to read the second instalment and see what happens to them all next.

The Halfpenny Girls is a heart-warming story of family and friendship amidst all that life can throw at you, good or bad. I raced through it and found it completely engrossing.… (más)

It's been great to catch up with Elsie, Dot and Millie, the jam factory girls of the title, in this second instalment of what is going to be a series about them. Mary Wood is a lovely saga writer, and she always writes an engrossing story filled with ups and downs and highs and lows for the characters.

When we left the girls at the end of book one, they'd all been through quite an upheaval with their respective families and learned a lot about each other. Elsie and Dot are from quite a different background to the upper class, Millie, but they all get on like a house on fire. As always though, the author doesn’t want her characters resting on their laurels and getting too settled and there's a lot in store in this book for each of them.

At one point I exclaimed out loud as I thought a particular character just couldn't take anymore, but these girls are strong and I hoped she could get through it. It's difficult to write a review without saying too much about what happened in book one but I knew that if anyone could cope with all that life was throwing at them then it was these plucky lasses.

Wood's characterisations are always very convincing and I had such a sense of feeling that the good characters are ones I'd love to be friends with and the horrid ones are ones that I feel a very strong dislike for. The setting is portrayed well too with a big contrast between Elsie and Dot's tenement past and Millie's posh house with staff. Then there's the factory itself, which didn't play as large a part in this book as the previous one but which is still an integral part of the story. I also enjoyed the social history aspect, with the beginning of improvements in working conditions and women's rights becoming more prevalent.

I'm looking forward to book three now and to see if Elsie gets her happy ending and how Millie fares after the revelations in this book. I went from smiles to frowns many times as I read this story but one thing that I can always be sure of is that Mary Wood will produce something that is both heart-warming and heart-wrenching, tragic yet uplifting. I really enjoyed Secrets of the Jam Factory Girls.… (más)

I always love a Mary Wood book and The Jam Factory Girls is no exception. The start of a brand new trilogy, it's full of the author's usual warmth.

The girls of the title are Elsie and Dot who work at Swift's Jam Factory in Bermondsey. Life is hard there and the women are not treated very well. Conditions are dangerous and they are expected to work overtime for nothing. Home life is not much better, living from hand to mouth in cramped surroundings. There is a third Jam Factory Girl: Millie Hawkesfield, the daughter of the owner. Against the odds, the three young women become fast friends but fate has quite a lot in store for them.

Mary Wood does tend to put her characters through a lot of trials and tribulations and Elsie, Dot and Millie don't get let off lightly. I did feel though that this book had plenty of good times to balance out the bad ones. Although each of the characters has some very tough and heartbreaking situations to endure, their friendship and their family relationships help them through it and I always love the way that Wood portrays the camaraderie between her characters.

With the book starting in 1910 I found it really interesting to read of the uprising amongst female workers in the various jam factories. The author did research into this and it was brilliant to see the workers coming out in force to campaign for better conditions and pay, and seeing the benefit of what was effectively a union.

I loved this story. I enjoyed reading about the workings of the jam factory, and the contrasts between upper class Millie and the working class Elsie and Dot were really well-drawn. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to them next in the second book in the trilogy, Secrets of the Jam Factory Girls.… (más)