‘Her voice is absolutely, beguilingly conversational … Intelligent, allusive, iconoclastic, captivatingly intense … This is the news from the domestic frontline: personal, unique, unexpurgated, without propaganda, as it unfolded and was experienced … Splendid’
William Boyd, Guardian

With the intimacy and wit of a Second World War Bridget Jones, Eileen Alexander offers a portal into life during the Blitz.

Eileen Alexander fell in love amidst the falling of bombs, finding a quotation from poetry at every turn. Graduating from Cambridge in 1939, she had just been injured in a car crash (the man she had a soft spot for was driving) and had firm ambitions of studying further, making herself useful and absolutely not getting married.

Her letters offer a love story and a unique snapshot of the home front, as well as resurrecting the voice of a profoundly funny writer.

‘I wonder what anyone would think if they suddenly came across my letters to you & started reading them in chronological order?’ Eileen wrote in 1941. ‘I think they’d say “This girl never lived till she loved” – and it would be true, darling.’

Eileen Alexander's Love in the Blitz is a captivating autobiography that offers a unique insight into 20th century Britain. This literary collection, which is among the best in European history, provides a comprehensive view of the military events of the time.

For fans of Patricia E. Malcolmson (The Diaries of Nella Last), Sarah Moss (My Good Bright Wolf), Francis Spufford (The Child that Books Built), and Colm Tóibín (The Master).

Love in the Blitz: A Woman in a World Turned Upside Down

Love in the Blitz: A Woman in a World Turned Upside Down