Blessed be the meddlers—but only the fictional ones who can’t actually meddle in your life. Perhaps it’s just that they’re fictional and there’s no way that their particular brand of obtrusive wackiness will ever actually touch my life, but I dearly love to read about characters who mean well but tend to sow havoc when they try to help. These were my thoughts when I read the adventures of Emmy Lake in A.J. Pearce’s delightfully funny novel, Dear Mrs Bird.
When we meet her, Emmy has not yet become aware of her meddler status. She seems content as a soldier’s fiancée, legal secretary, and volunteer dispatcher for London’s air raid fire service. But then, she gets what she thinks is a once in a lifetime job opportunity: a job as a junior at a Fleet Street magazine. Unfortunately, this is not the first step to becoming a Lady War Correspondent (there are a lot of very British capital letters in this book). Emmy’s brand new job is as an assistant to the very bombastic and very old-fashioned advice columnist, Mrs Bird, at Women’s Friend. Since there aren’t any other job prospects, Emmy stays put, even though Mrs Bird is absolutely horrible. It isn’t long before Emmy is tempted to unofficially expand her job duties. Mrs Bird has a long list of topics for letters that are Unacceptable. She refuses to write about anything to do with adultery, sex, the war, and any adjacent topics. When she does answer a reader’s letter, her advice is as brisk as a cold shower with vinegar. So, Emmy starts to answer the letters herself.
(Image via WW2Today)
Dear Mrs Bird follows Emmy as she continues her subterfuge and Do Her Bit during the worst months of the Blitz. The language of the novel is very much Keep Calm and Carry On. It’s hard to get a sense of what Emmy and her fellow Londoners really feel unless you’re fluent in understated British English. As the Blitz continues, however, it gets harder for Emmy, her friends, and family, who start to lose their stiff upper lip, just a little. The sadness makes this book feel more real, giving us a small taste of what life might have been like when you didn’t know if you might get bombed out or killed by the Germans.
It’s only a taste though, and Dear Mrs Bird has wonderfully funny language, a romance subplot, hilarious characters, and plenty of period detail for the history buffs among us. I really enjoyed reading this book. It scratched an itch I didn’t know I had since I read Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons, in which another character who is convinced of the rightness of her actions turns a community on its head. Perhaps the thing I liked most about Dear Mrs Bird is its sweetness. What inspires Emmy to answer that first letter is a deep empathy for a writer who has no one else to turn to, who needs a sympathetic ear and a kind word of advice.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration. It will be released 3 July 2018.