North Camp, a growing Hampshire village, has been briefly energised by the cessation of the Great War and the years of peace that followed. Now, however, with the beginning of the Second World War, the lives of the inhabitants are plunged once more into chaos.
Tom Munday, carpenter of the village, is now seventy-two and grandfather to the children of his daughters Grace and Isabel. The stories of a new generation unravel as the girls move into womanhood, coping with family expectations and the budding of first loves, and as the young men are called to active duty, anxious to do their part in the fight.
Those left behind on the home front must find ways to adapt to wartime challenges: the return of wounded soldiers, the loss of loved ones, and the arrival of newborns, child evacuees and prisoners of war. And meanwhile, amongst all the horror and adversity, love both illicit and conventional blossoms. A rich tale of strength, courage and romance, A Family’s Duty examines the complex interweaving of lives against the backdrop of World War II.
Autorentext
Born in Hampshire, Maggie Bennett worked as a nurse and midwife until her retirement in 1991. She enjoyed modest successes with articles and short stories before the publication of her first romance novel in 1992. This novel won that year's RNA New Writer's Award and she went on to publish six more medical romances, all under her married name of Margaret Holt.
Zusammenfassung
1938. Britain and Germany are on the brink of war, and the tension and fear is felt throughout Europe. In the small Hampshire Village of North Camp, the lives of Tom Munday, his family and friends will be changed forever. Their stories of romance, both lawful and illicit, loss, hope and the will to endure are all inextricably linked and transformed by wartime England. For the Munday family, the effects of war echo on for generations.