The Wartime Book Club

During World War Two Germany invaded the Channel Islands including Jersey which is where Kate Thompson has set her historical fiction novel, The Wartime Book Club. Grace is determined to keep the library on the island open as reading books is one of the few avenues of escape for the residents of the island. Many people visit the library to read and or borrow books and Grace also regularly cycles to parts of the island delivering books to those who cannot easily visit the library themselves. Then the suggestion is made that Grace should establish a book club in the library. 

Grace's friend, Bea, works at the post office where she sorts the mail and makes deliveries each day. Through her job she becomes aware that the mail service is being used by some inhabitants of the island to report the possible misdemeanors of neighbours to the Germans. This is just one way some islanders place the lives of their neighbours in danger.

As the war drags on, life becomes more difficult for the locals living on an island where there are severe food shortages and their every move is watched by an enemy who becomes increasingly dangerous with the realisation that defeat is around the corner. 

The Wartime Book Club is one of several novels written about life on the Channel Islands during the Second World War. Other books include The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Dancing with the Enemy by Diane Armstrong and The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat. At the end of the novel Kate Thomson includes information about the sources used when writing the book plus events and people who inspired the creation of The Wartime Book Club.