Stormy Days on Mulberry Lane (Mulberry Lane #7) by Rosie Clarke
Genre: Historical fiction, Sagas, Post-WW2
Read: 31st January 2021
Published: 2nd February 2021
★★★★★ 4.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
London 1950
Peggy Ronoscki is happily settling into life running her guesthouse on Mulberry Lane, surrounded by close friends and family. Life just seems too good…
But then disaster strikes.
Pip, her beloved son is left in a coma following a devastating car crash and a young girl collapses in the market leaving Peggy no option but to nurse her back to health.
As things begin to go awry, Peggy worries she has brought trouble to her doorstep?
Can her life ever return to normal? Or has Peggy’s good nature led her astray?
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BlogTour for Rosie Clarke's latest heartwarming saga STORMY DAYS ON MULBERRY LANE.
A delightful journey to the London's East End in this seventh installment in the Mulberry Lane series, STORMY DAYS ON MULBERRY LANE follows the women and their families who live in and around Mulberry Lane. I can't believe I have not read anything from the series before now because it is simply a wonderfully easy read that is gentle, light and heartwarming. Despite having never read the previous six books, I was still able to pick it up as if I'd just left the women and I was revisiting them once again. Not once did I feel out of place or as if I had missed out on too much because everything that is needed for this story is found within these pages. I not once found myself lost in a story I had come into partway but felt as if I had always been there from the beginning.
It's 1950 and this story focuses on Peggy Ronoscki, or "Peggy of the Lanes", as she is more fondly known as. It is clear from the beginning that Peggy, her husband Able and their twins Fay and Freddie have moved back to London from the slower pace of the Devonshire coast where they ran a successful and highly profitable cafe.
Now Peggy is happily settled back into life in the Lane and running her guesthouse whilst helping out in the Pig and Whistle pub with her daughter-in-law Sheila. Surrounded by her family and friends, with the exception of her daughter Janet who now lives in Scotland with her husband Ryan and daughter Maggie, Peggy is the sort of friend you would want any type of crisis. She is a rare gem with her strength of character, strong values and her ability to always see the good in people. If she could do a good deed for anyone, she would...no questions asked. And she would ask for nothing in return. But sometimes that kind of generosity can be taken advantage of...as Peggy is soon to discover.
With the war now over and rationing still rampant on selected items, the effects may still linger but the backbone of the people remain. They have lived through a World War, some of them two wars, and yet the people of Britain remain stoic. Five years on and the city, as well as the country, are slowly rebuilding their homes and their lives. And Peggy's guesthouse is somewhere I would love to stay, should there be such a thing in this day and age. She is a caring hostess who goes out of her way to make every one of her guests feel at home with lovely rooms and hearty home-cooked meals. Such is her hospitality that someone puts her name forward to the Landlady of the Year award which will see her shortlisted and invited to cook a traditional menu that she would normally serve her guests at the illustrious Savoy Hotel. Peggy does it just for the love of what she does and doesn't expect to win when up against other more talented hostesses. But will she surprise them all and take out the prize?
Peggy's life has not been without heartache. She was once married to a man who betrayed her with another before falling victim to the war. She and her two children, Pip and Janet, moved on and she met and married Able Ronoscki and had twins Fay and Freddie, now aged 10. But throughout every challenge, Peggy's unfaltering resolve and hope gives both herself and others the strength and the courage to be the best they can in any circumstance.
Now Peggy's daughter-in-law and publican of the Pig and Whistle is heavily pregnant with her second child, her daughter Janet is miles away in Scotland expecting her second child also and one of the other women in the lane, Rose Barton, is also expecting another. All three women are heavily pregnant and all due within weeks of each other and Peggy being Peggy, intends to be there for each of them.
However, Sheila's baby arrives a couple of weeks ahead of schedule and as she calls to tell her son Pip the news that he is the father of a beautiful little girl, she is greeted with the news that he has been involved in a car accident and is currently in hospital in Winchester with critical injuries that have left him in a coma. Peggy's first instinct is to go to her son but Sheila needs bed rest and she must take over the running of the pub as well as her guesthouse in her place. But upon hearing the news about her brother, heavily pregnant Janet travels down from Scotland to see her mother before making the trip to Winchester to see Pip. And then Sheila decides she must also go to see her husband, despite needing bed rest after the birth. Leaving Peggy behind to run both establishments...with the help of her friends. But when Rose goes into labour, she then finds herself down one pair of hands.
In the midst of it all, Peggy's kindness is taken advantage of when she takes in a young girl called Gillian whom she finds half starved, pale and weak on the street. She feeds her, clothes her and gives her a place to stay until she is stronger. But every time Peggy suggests she take a walk with her outside, Gillian becomes fearful and skitters away to her room. She is aware that the girl has been used and abused by someone or others, but what damage has it left on the poor girl? Then things start happening in the guesthouse...salt in the sugar, phone messages not passed on and then Fay takes a tumble down the stairs, leaving her unable to skate for some weeks. But when things start going missing, Peggy realises that her generosity has been taken for granted and she must have a word to Gillian. Only when she knocks on her door, she finds Gillian has trashed the room and left. Peggy is stunned. She only did what she thought was right by the girl...how could she repay her like this?
We also catch up with friends such as Maureen and her husband Gordon, daughter Shirley and boys Gordy and Matty, as well as Rose and Tom Barton. In the guesthouse there is also sweet Alice who Peggy has known since before the war and took in because the woman was lonely living on her own, and then there is Pearl who comes in to clean the guesthouse. We follow Shirley on her working holiday to Clacton-on-sea with her boyfriend Richard and her ambitions to become a doctor, having already been accepted to study medicine at Durham university.
There is always something happening in the lanes that you are made to feel a part of as you watch romance, illness, new life and mysteries unfold. As well as Peggy's mouth-watering food. There are plenty of ups and downs as life continues for the women of Mulberry Lane and their families.
I am only sorry I have not discovered this series before now as I would love to follow the women from the beginning...but I guess one day I will find the time to go back and revisit them from the start.
A heartwarming story from beginning to end, STORMY DAYS ON MULBERRY LANE is a must for any and all fans of historical fiction, particularly those of heartwarming sagas.
I would like to thank #RosieClarke, #RachelsRandomResources, #BoldwoodBooks for an ARC of #StormyDaysOnMulberryLane in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Rosie Clarke has been writing for several years and has written under various names for a variety of publishers. She lives in Cambridgeshire, is happily married and enjoys life with her husband. She likes to walk in the Spanish sunshine and eating out at favourite restaurants in Marbella is a favourite pastime, but writing is her passion.
Rosie loves shoes, especially those impossibly high heels you can buy and has a gorgeous pair of Jimmy Choos but can't wear them so they sit on the mantlepiece.
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