War Clouds Over Blackberry Farm: The start of a brand new historical saga series by Rosie Clarke

By Rosie Clarke

The start of a brand NEW series from bestselling author Rosie Clarke

Cambridgeshire - March 1939

As the clouds of war begin to gather in Europe, the Talbot family of rural Blackberry Farm will be torn apart, just as so many families all over the world will be. Life will never be the same again.

Whilst in London, the Salmons family will feel the pain of parting and loss.

Brought together by war, the two families become intertwined and, as the outlook looks bleak, they must draw on each other’s strength to fight through the hard times.

Lizzie Johnson and Tom were sweethearts until a mistake caused a terrible rift. Lizzie takes herself off to London to heal the pain in a glamorous new job but she still loves Tom. His pride has been hurt – but deep down inside Tom still cares. Can they find happiness before their chance is gone and the whole world is swept into the terrible madness of war?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boldwood Books
• Release date: Nov 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781801622363

Rosie Clarke

Rosie Clarke is a #1 bestselling saga writer whose books include Welcome to Harpers Emporium and The Mulberry Lane series. She has written over 100 novels under different pseudonyms and is a RNA Award winner. She lives in Cambridgeshire.

Book preview

1

Blackberry Farm

Cambridgeshire, March 1939

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‘Hello, Miss Jackson, or may I call you Lizzie…?’

The voice accosting Lizzie Jackson from the expensive Austin car made her turn and look at the man in the driver’s seat. He had pulled into the kerb of Sutton Road, which led into the little village of Mepal where she lived. Sutton itself was just a couple of miles distant by the road across the hill and she often walked it to get to the hairdressing salon, where she worked. She was strolling back home that lunchtime, as it was her afternoon off and she had nothing much to do.

‘You look very lovely today, if I may say so…’

Lizzie suppressed a giggle as she recognised him. She knew he was just flirting with her, and he was accounted to be a bit of a womaniser, though she didn’t know much about him herself, except that he came from March, which was in the other direction to Sutton but thirteen miles further on from her small village. She would need to catch the bus to get there and seldom visited, unless she wanted to go shopping, though her mother had come from that bustling railway town before she married Lizzie’s father. It was the centre of the railway hereabouts and very busy on market days, the railway being an important terminal that held many trains in its surrounding yards.

Sutton Road was surrounded by fields, trees and hedges, many of which bore blackberries in the autumn. Much of the land in the district was pretty flat, but Blackberry Farm was situated at the bottom of the hill and spread up and over the hill. It belonged to Arthur Talbot, and it was the farm she was heading to now; the Talbots’ own land consisted of perhaps a hundred acres. They also hired land situated on the Chatteris Road, which was halfway between Mepal and March and had fields in the fens in Sutton.

Tom Gilbert was Pam Talbot’s eldest son and lived there with his mother, stepfather and siblings. He did much of the work on the farm and was very popular in the village. He could, Lizzie knew, have courted almost any girl he liked, but for some reason he wanted her – and she wanted him. The only problem was that Tom took his time and Lizzie was like quicksilver. She wanted to do everything this minute and she wasn’t sure whether Tom’s intentions were for the future or just for the here and now. Was she just fun to go around with – or did he want to marry her?

It would do no harm to play Ralph Harris along a little, she thought. It might even make Tom jealous if he saw her chatting to another man – make him pull his socks up, as her father had been used to say. Lizzie’s mother was forever asking her if Tom was serious and if they were thinking of getting married. Lizzie suspected that she had ambitions to move back to March, where she’d been born, but that wouldn’t be easy for her. After Lizzie’s father had died, they’d been lucky to stay on in the tied cottage that belonged to Tom’s stepfather and was just up the road from the farm, partway along the road to yet another of the cluster of villages in the area.

Her eyes wandered to the beautiful, old chestnut trees that grew in a field opposite to the farm. Later in the year, they would be glorious with heavy, white blossom, but just now they were still waiting for the warmth of the sun to bring out their beauty. The hedgerows would be full of blossom, too, and the huge white sprays of kicksies would line the lanes and ditches everywhere, together with the purple mallow. Lizzie had no idea what the tall weeds were properly called, everyone in the villages called them kicksies, perhaps because the farmers would kick them down and curse them when they encroached on their land.

The field opposite Blackberry Farm was always wet and used mostly for hay; the villagers often borrowed it to hold the fetes they liked during the summer and Lizzie sometimes helped on the cake stall. She was a good baker and made cakes to sell for whatever was needed, usually something for the beautiful, but small church that lay to the left of the village centre. A tiny graveyard was there, too, where Lizzie’s father was buried, and she took flowers regularly. She still missed him.

She was about to approach the stationary car to speak to Ralph when she saw a man in the field at the bottom of the hill; he’d just left the farmyard and was walking towards his home, an ancient farmhouse built at the other side of the connecting field. It was Tom and he was waving to her.

Changing her mind about flirting with Ralph, she waved back.

‘That’s my boyfriend,’ she said to Ralph. ‘Bye…’

She walked towards the farmhouse and went to meet Tom as he arrived home. Had she glanced back, she might have seen the scowl on Ralph Harris’s face as he watched her greet Tom Gilbert with a kiss. Had she heard the scraunch of his brakes as he shot off down the road, she might have been warned and she might have saved herself some future pain, but she only had eyes for Tom, the posh car forgotten as she rushed to meet the man, she believed she loved, even if he did drive her mad with his slowness sometimes… and suddenly the afternoon was filled with promise. Perhaps Tom might even have time to take her into the lovely cathedral city of Ely, just fifteen minutes away. It was a Thursday and market day and Lizzie would love to buy herself a new skirt, if only Tom could spare the time to take her. They might even buy fish and chips from the shop on the market square and take it to eat by the river.

‘Wipe your feet, John,’ Pam Talbot smiled at her youngest son that evening, one week after Tom had taken Lizzie into Ely to buy a new skirt, as she reminded him of his manners. ‘This is your home not a building site.’

‘Aw, Ma,’ John said, looking down at his boots. ‘They’re not dirty.’

‘John, do as your mother tells you,’ Arthur Talbot frowned at him. ‘Your mother rules the house and if she wants you to take off your boots when you enter the kitchen, you do it, understood?’

John didn’t answer but bent and untied the laces of the heavy boots he wore in his job as a plasterer. He was right to say his boots were not dirty, for the building site he’d been on that day was almost finished, all mud and mess cleared from sight, but John never argued with his father.

‘If I scrub this floor once a day, I consider that’s enough,’ Pam spoke to no one in particular. ‘I know none of you can help fetching mud in from the farm, but you can remove your boots. Now, no more on the subject, just sit down and have your tea, John. You’re the last in, but I saved you a nice portion of my beef and ale pie. I know it’s your favourite.’

‘I’m starving,’ John said and flashed a brilliant smile at his mother. ‘Has it got mushrooms?’

‘Of course. Tom picked them for me first thing – a great big basketful. We had some for our docky, but I saved some for the pie, because I know how much you love them, John.’ Pam smiled at the son who resembled her the most. John had her fair hair and soft, slightly feminine features with grey eyes and a smile that lit up the room. He was giving her that special look now.

Tom was her eldest son, on the way when she’d married John’s father, and he did lots of chores for her, but his work was on the farm and he was her husband’s chief man, the only one who could work this difficult land as it ought to be. He’d brought her the mushrooms when he came in for his docky, which was the farming folks’ word for an early lunch. It was eaten around eleven-thirty and a cold meal as a rule, though sometimes Pam did a fry-up, which they all loved. She cooked a full meal in the evenings, when they could all sit down together, if they chose.

All her children were special to her, but perhaps Tom and John were her favourites, though she tried to treat and love them all equally. Artie was different, a bit more reserved and not as easy to please. Susan and Angela were also special in their different ways – but perhaps a mother always had a soft spot for her boys.

‘I got something for you today,’ John told her and glanced briefly at his father sitting in the wooden rocking chair by the fire. ‘I’ll give it to you later…’

‘You spoil me,’ Pam said because her youngest son was always buying her small gifts. A piece of glass for her collection that graced the front parlour or an inexpensive silver brooch. She had tried to stop him and Arthur said he was a fool to spend his money on junk, but John enjoyed giving her things and she enjoyed having them. Flowers were her favourite and he bought her a posy most weeks when he was paid, but this wasn’t payday and by the look on John’s face it was something a bit special.

‘That bloody Hitler—’ Arthur’s snort of disgust made his wife and son look at him. ‘Someone ought to shoot him before he gets us all into a lot of trouble.’

They both had vivid memories of the last war, having lived through it. Arthur hadn’t been called up, because he’d been needed on the farm – land which had been in his family for several generations. He’d actually tried to enlist, but they’d told him he had flat feet and would be more useful where he was, producing food for the nation. Had he been a soldier, Pam might never have met him just when she’d needed his love and kindness so badly.

‘What has he done now, Arthur?’ she asked.

‘It’s what he’s threatening to do,’ her husband muttered and subsided behind his Daily Mail without making it any clearer just what the German dictator had been up to this time. They all knew Arthur’s opinion of Hitler and what was happening to the Jewish people over there, but the family normally avoided the subject rather than see him get angry and frustrated because nothing was being done about it by the British Government. Hitler had entered Austria to cheers and enthusiasm earlier that month and some feared that his welcome had led him to think he could simply do the same with the rest of Europe.

Pam didn’t pursue the question. She was used to Arthur’s outbursts that were seldom elaborated on and since she’d read the headlines herself, she was well aware of Hitler’s threats and the way his followers were treating the Jews, which she thought terrible, but that was out there in Germany, and it felt like it had nothing to do with her or her family. The newspapers were always talking about the possibility of war, but in March 1939, it was still peaceful on the Talbots’ farm, though building work was going on all over the country in preparation for the hostilities that sometimes seemed inevitable. Trouble was brewing in Germany and when that spilled over, it was almost certain to result in another terrible war. In London, she knew, trenches had been dug in the park to shelter the citizens should the bombs start to fall, and some folk were digging air-raid shelters in their back gardens, just in case. Also, there were airfields and army barracks being erected everywhere. It was rumoured the Government wanted some of the Talbots’ land, though they hadn’t been informed officially yet.

Pam’s thoughts were turned as her eldest son Tom entered the kitchen. He had been up to their modern bathroom – a great luxury Arthur had had installed in the ancient farmhouse for her just the previous year – for a wash and shave. The smell of Imperial Leather wafted in with him and she smiled, because he was so tall and strong and handsome in his own way – though perhaps others might just see his square jaw and miss the beauty of those deep grey eyes and dark wavy hair. He was also a clever farmer and a dutiful son to his parents, so much so that Arthur favoured him above his own sons at times.

‘You look nice, love,’ Pam said, looking fondly at him. ‘Are you going to see Lizzie tonight?’ Lizzie Jackson was his regular girlfriend and there was vague talk of a marriage one day, though neither of them seemed in a hurry.

‘Not tonight, Ma,’ Tom said. ‘She’s doing her mother’s hair – something called a perm, I think she called it. No, I’m off to the pub. We’ve got a darts match on this evening.’

‘Well, have a good time, love, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t…’ Pam teased with a twinkle in her eye.

Arthur snorted from behind the paper and John laughed out loud. ‘That means you can do whatever you like,’ he said. ‘Our ma was a right cracker when she was your age…’

Arthur rattled his paper and looked over it at his youngest son. ‘Your mother was a perfectly decent young woman. I won’t have you take her name in vain. I can still give you a good hiding, boy, and don’t you forget it!’

‘He’s only teasing, Arthur,’ Pam said. ‘Besides, my lads know I enjoyed a few drinks and a bit of fun when we were young – good, innocent fun never hurt anyone.’

‘I’m off, Ma,’ Tom said and gave her still-slim waist a squeeze. ‘You’re the best mum ever and if anyone said any different, we’d make them eat their words. John never thinks before he speaks…’ He looked warningly at his brother, who seemed as if he might protest but then thought better of it. ‘I shan’t be late, Dad. We’ve got an early start in the morning – those bullocks need fetching up from the washes if they’re off to the market in Ely on Thursday.’

‘That’s right, son.’ Arthur looked approvingly at the son his wife had been carrying before he’d met her.

Arthur had ignored all those who said she was fast and listened to Pam’s story. Tommy Gilbert had gone for a soldier in 1914 and she’d given herself to him the night before he left with his promise of marriage when he returned. She’d loved him so much and wanted to make him happy that last night, but he’d been killed in his first encounter with the enemy and Pam had had to face the disgrace of giving birth to a child out of wedlock. She’d been willing to do it, grieving for her lost love, but then Arthur asked her to wed him and she saw a better life for herself and her son. Arthur hadn’t cared one jot that she was close to giving birth to a child. He’d known she was for him the moment he saw her and he loved Tom as much as his own children, perhaps more.

Pam considered herself lucky, because the love she’d discovered had been good for them all, but Arthur always told her that he was the lucky one, because he’d got two good things in his life for the price of one. As he’d told her, ‘You know I like a good bargain, love.’ His smile had been teasing, but Pam knew that she was loved.

Arthur was smiling his approval at Tom now. ‘I know I can rely on you to do what’s right, son.’

Tom nodded and left just as his brother Artie entered the house. Artie had been out to bring in coal and chop wood for their mother. Artie worked on the farm just as Tom did and they were good friends.

‘That’s a good lad,’ Arthur as he saw the logs his eldest son had chopped. ‘That will keep your mother going tomorrow. Are you off out now?’

‘I’m just going into Chatteris,’ Artie said. ‘My mate George is going to give my motorbike a service and I’ll help him. I may be late back…’

‘Be careful on that thing,’ Pam said, looking at her nineteen-year-old anxiously. Chatteris might only be five miles away, but she didn’t like motorbikes. However, Arthur said you had to let lads go their own way and Artie was sensible. He’d saved for his bike himself and he was a careful rider.

‘I am always careful, Ma,’ Artie said and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ve got too much to live for to be stupid. Don’t you worry.’

‘Your ma will always worry,’ Arthur said and glanced at Pam. ‘I think I’ll take a last walk round, make sure the beasts are all right before I settle for the night.’

‘All right,’ Pam said and smiled fondly at her husband. ‘Why don’t you wander down the pub and have a pint?’

‘Tom will think I’m checking up on him,’ Arthur replied. Tom would be in the local pub by the river, the Three Pickerels, and Arthur didn’t like to intrude on his free time. ‘There’s a beer in the pantry, I’ll have that when I get back and then listen to the wireless for a while. Henry Hall is on tonight.’

‘All right, love,’ Pam agreed, because she liked listening to Henry Hall’s orchestra too. They played all the popular tunes. ‘I’m going up to our Susan in a minute and I’ll make sure she’s done her homework. She’s a good girl, but it’s maths tonight and that’s not her favourite.’ Their sixteen-year-old daughter was staying on at school to take her higher exams, because she thought she wanted to become a teacher and that suited her parents. She hadn’t passed her exam for the high school in Ely, so she went to the senior school in Chatteris, like all the kids from Mepal and Sutton. They all caught the bus to and from school, unless they missed it and had to walk all the way in, which a couple of boys who had to work on their parents’ smallholding had been known to do now and then. However, there was a pleasant little school for the younger ones in the village.

Teaching was a good steady job that a girl could return to in later life, even if she married and had children – which for a pretty girl like their Susan was very likely. Her teacher had told them that it was still possible for her to win a place in college if she worked hard – but would she?

Arthur said she was nearly as beautiful as her mother had been when she was young and she had the same fair hair, with the same sweet mouth and smile, but blue rather than grey eyes – but then he was prejudiced in her favour, and it would be hard to say whether he was prouder of his wife or his daughter. A man of few words, a grunt of approval was all his wife ever needed to know that he was pleased with her.

Pam smiled as her husband shrugged on his thick jacket and went out. Only John was left with her now and, as expected, he got up and went to fetch something from his jacket pocket. He handed her a small, black, cardboard box and Pam opened it, feeling surprised as she saw the lovely earrings nestling in cotton wool inside. They were for pierced ears, which she’d had done some years ago, and had gold loops with a single oval moonstone drop rimmed with gold and were delicate and pretty.

‘Oh, John,’ she said reverently. ‘Where on earth did you find these? They are beautiful, thank you so much.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Really, you shouldn’t, love.’

‘I thought you would like them,’ John replied, looking pleased. ‘I had to go into March for my boss this afternoon and I looked in the jeweller’s window and saw those. He told me they’re Victorian and I know you like old things.’ John’s boss was a builder and a bricklayer himself, but John had learned the art of plastering, which made him valuable to a small firm like Jack Freeman’s.

‘I love them, John,’ she assured him. ‘They are wonderful – but they cost a bit and you should save your money, love. One day you will want to marry and have a home of your own.’

‘I’ll not marry – not for a long time, anyway,’ John told her. ‘You’re my best girl, Ma. I like to buy you things and I’m earning good money now. Jack Freeman was saying that he thinks I’m the best worker he has and he put my money up.’ John sipped the hot strong tea his mother poured him. ‘Jack has no children, Ma. He asked me if I would consider going in with him as a junior partner. I said I’d give it some thought…’

‘That’s a marvellous chance for you,’ Pam said, looking at him in surprise. ‘Why didn’t you say yes immediately?’

‘I thought it might upset Pa,’ John replied, looking at her anxiously. ‘I know I am a disappointment to him, because I didn’t want to work on the farm…’

‘Bless you, boy! He’s got two sons to take over when he wants a bit of an easy life. Why should he begrudge you a chance like that? Do you have to pay anything to become a partner?’

John shook his head. ‘I asked him – I’ve got a little bit saved in the Post Office – but he said no, he would give it to me. He reckons I’ve earned it and it will keep me loyal to the firm and I’ll take over the running of the business in years to come, allowing him an easier time. I’ve had a few offers to go elsewhere, see, and Jack knows it. He wants to keep me.’

Pam nodded, her smile warm for her youngest boy. She was well aware that Arthur sometimes felt cheated because John had chosen to work elsewhere and that he could not please his father whatever he did. John felt his father’s disappointment keenly, but he’d chosen his profession and she hadn’t questioned it and now she felt proud of his determination and the high opinion his boss had of him. ‘Well, you do what you want, love – and don’t worry about your dad. He loves you, John, even if he doesn’t show it much.’

‘I know it, Ma,’ John said. ‘When I was younger, I felt his disapproval, but when I had that bad attack of measles four years ago, I woke to find him crying by my bed and stroking my head. I knew he loved me then – even though he was so angry when I went to work for Jack.’

‘Arthur is a good man,’ Pam said. ‘He was upset, but he told me the other day he’d seen some of your work and thought it was good.’

‘I wonder where he saw that…’ John said, a little surprised. ‘Unless he went to the market in March?’

‘He did.’ Pam nodded. ‘It was that evening he told me you were a craftsman. I think he’d had a look round a new house that’s being offered for sale there.’

‘Ah, yes, that was a good job. I did some special work on the ceiling rose for that client,’ John said. ‘Well, fancy Dad seeing that…’ He smiled to himself. ‘I’m going up for a wash and then I’ll get to bed.’

‘Not going out this evening?’ Pam looked at him. ‘You could go and watch Tom play darts.’

‘No, I’ve got a new Agatha Christie I want to read. I’ll just read for a while and then get some rest. We’ve got three houses to plaster this week and I’ll be working later tomorrow.’

‘You do as you like, love – and thank you again for my gorgeous gift.’

Pam nodded as he left the room. She liked a good book herself and John would pass his new book on to her when he’d finished it. She glanced at the clock. It was just eight according to the old-fashioned, marble timepiece Arthur set such store by – time she went up to make certain Susan was doing her homework and not painting her toenails or reading a Mills and Boon romance. She would pop in on her youngest daughter, Angela, too, make sure she was asleep.

She glanced at the basket of ironing and sighed. Having a big family was wonderful, but there was always a lot of washing and ironing to do. When she came down, Arthur would be back. He would click the wireless on and she could listen to some music while she ironed all those shirts.

2

‘Take that back, it’s a damned lie!’ Tom Gilbert said, glaring at the man who had just spoken in such a slighting way of Lizzie. ‘How dare you say such a foul thing!’

The buzz of talk behind him quietened immediately as the pub’s customers sensed a fight, everyone watching intently as the two men squared up.

‘She’s playing you for a fool,’ Fred Barker said with a sly leer. ‘She has been seeing that bloke from March behind your back for months.’

Tom had known Fred for years. He was the same age but worked in the Ely Ales Brewery at the bottom of Forehill in Ely and was a loudmouth, but this time he’d gone too far.

‘That is a lie!’ Tom shouted and his fists balled at his sides. ‘Take it back, Fred, or I’ll knock your head off. I’m warning you…’

‘I’m telling you for your own good, but you’re too thick to see it.’

‘Take no notice of him, Tom.’ His friend Steve placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘He’s just jealous because Lizzie wouldn’t look at him.’

‘She’s a slut…’

Fred Barker pushed his luck too far and Tom’s fist exploded in his face. Fred rocked on his feet and then flung himself at his rival with fists and feet as the room burst into feverish life behind them, men cheering on both sides as the fighting ensued. Fred landed a few blows, but they glanced off Tom’s chin and Tom’s second punch sent Fred down to the floor, where he lay with his eyes closed, and several voices exclaimed in disappointment.

‘You might have made it last a bit longer, Tom. I was just enjoying that,’ one old-timer said behind him. ‘The damned fool should’ve known better than to quarrel with you.’

Tom felt several of his mates clap him on the shoulder. ‘Even that gipsy lad you suspected of stealing chickens the other year lasted longer than that…’ one of them said. They’d all known what was going on, but there had been no way to prove it, but when the travelling fair had come to Sutton that year and the gipsy lad had entered the bare-knuckle contest, Tom had decided to teach him a lesson in the ring. After he’d knocked him down three times, Tom had warned him what would happen if he kept stealing from him and his neighbours. His hands had been sore for a week, but it had been worth it – the thefts had stopped after the fight.

‘Bloody fool,’ Pete Green said, looking at the man on the floor in disgust. ‘Don’t they know you’re the champ?’

‘I don’t fight unless provoked,’ Tom said ruefully as Fred stirred. He regretted the lapse that had made him strike a man he’d known couldn’t stand up to him.

‘You should enter the fight contest again when the midsummer fair comes to March,’ one of Tom’s friends said. ‘There’s a prize of twenty pounds this year. I reckon you could take it easy, Tom.’

‘I told you, I don’t fight unless provoked,’ Tom said, looking down at Fred as he staggered, trying to rise straight on his feet and failing. ‘Someone, get him out of here. I don’t want to kill him.’

‘Leave that to me,’ Jim Marshall, the local police constable, said and together with another man, they pulled Fred to his feet and hauled him out into the cool night air. Over his shoulder, he said, ‘He asked for it, Tom. There will be no trouble from me – he’s had it coming for a while. I’ve seen him driving his van like crazy after he’s been drinking. Maybe this will teach him a lesson – if not, I’ll be arresting him for behaving like a fool when he’s had too much. If he spends a night in the police cells in Ely, he’ll likely come to his senses.’

‘Thanks, Jim,’ Tom said and frowned. ‘I’m sorry I hit him, though. I should have held my temper.’

‘He deserved it.’

Tom nodded as the luckless Fred disappeared from sight. He would wake to a sore chin and a headache and it served him right.

The memory of his words made Tom frown. There was no truth in what he’d said. Lizzie was at home doing her mother’s hair. Why should she lie to him? Tom had never asked for her promise to be true to only him. He’d taken it for granted they would marry one day, but neither of them was in a hurry. If Lizzie wanted to be with someone else, she would tell him, wouldn’t she? He grimaced. Of course, she would, he reasoned. He wouldn’t let a nothing like Fred Barker make him suspicious of the girl he admired for her ambition and her determination to become a top-class hairdresser. No, Lizzie was straight – she wouldn’t lie to him…

‘Now maybe we can continue our match in peace,’ another voice said. ‘Or do you want to retire?’

Tom looked at the man who had spoken with a slightly derisive note in his voice, and glared at him. His hand was sore after punching Fred so hard, but he would rather suffer a dozen times the pain than let Ralph Harris have the last say. Now, if he’d been the one to get hit, Tom would have enjoyed knocking him down, but Ralph was too smart to provoke him to anger.

Ralph worked for himself, though no one was quite sure what he did – some kind of dealing, none too honest, was the general opinion. He was the same age as Tom and had gone to Chatteris school at the same time, but he hadn’t excelled at anything that mattered. Yes, he was close to top in maths, history and science – but he was no good at woodwork or sport, the only two subjects that held much interest for the local boys. Tom was good at anything that interested him, which was working with his hands, driving and sport.

‘No thanks,’ Tom said and grinned. ‘I think that was my last leg – two more and you’re out, Harris.’

‘You have to take them

Reviews for War Clouds Over Blackberry Farm

[kris_anderson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

War Clouds Over Blackberry Farm is the beginning of Rosie Clarke’s new series. We are taken back to March of 1939. I love Ms. Clarke’s Mulberry Lane series, so I was eager to check out this new historical novel. I found it a little slow in the beginning as we are introduced to the characters and their situations. I soon found myself caught up in this engaging story. I liked getting to know the Talbot family on Blackberry Farm as well as Lizzie and the other secondary characters. I just loved Pam. The author provided good descriptions of the people and the locale. She captured the time period as well with books, movies, clothing, cars, current events, and the slang. I liked the contrast between the city (with the Salmons) and the country (with the Talbots). It was interesting to see how the author connected the two families (one in Cambridgeshire and one in London). We get to see how the war affects the people in England. The new regulations put in place was interesting especially for farmers. Family and friendships are especially important during the war. People became closer during this time period. It was amazing how people helped each other. Rosie Clarke created two wonderful families in this story. I can always count on this author’s books to have good characters plus for her books to give you that warm, happy feelings. There is some mild foul language in the book and one scene where a woman is attacked by a man she trusts (fair warning). Readers who enjoy dramatic historical sagas, will be delighted with War Clouds Over Blackberry Farm. War Clouds Over Blackberry Farm is an uplifting tale that has duplicity, love, war, hope, loss, friendships, and family.