A Novel (Random House Large Print) - The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

I loved the way the story unfolded through letters written and diary entries by the characters. It was a glimpse of these ordinary women sustained their lives through the arduous times of World War II.

Enjoyed this book with its English historical backdrop of World War II. The writer did a great job of setting a wonderful pace with her ebb and flow of words. Just wish I knew the author's reference to many of the old English songs. Would highly recommend this book to my friends.

Lovely story about people you feel you know working and growing during tough times as women can and do when men are away. Life seems real and liveable most of the time because of the bond of giving by being in the the ladies choir with men unavailable nor needed in a coastal English town near the coast during WWll. An uplifting read and fun as well.

A really enjoyable read of a small town in England during WW II. With most of the men off to war, the women are running the town and choir! Unheard of! And yet done and capably so. Love, laughter and tears- I wanted to listen to all their stories!

Wow! For a good read that involves heartbreak, humor, intrigue, spy missions, WWII, bombings, switching babies at birth, class issues, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir is that and more. It is so well written, the characters "voices" are so well developed that we can feel the changes they go through. They are compelled to challenge traditions and take on new roles as the men leave the village to go to war. Jennifer Ryan uses the method of letters, journals, diaries, village notices to have life unfold in the village of Chilbury. Prim, even with strong objections that you couldn't possibly have a choir without men, does form the Ladies' Choir which is the core of the story. It's a story of survival, physical and mental, of social change, and changing roles, of support of women for each other in grief and in happiness. Oh, and yes.. remember when you read the book to pay special attention to the need for a male heir , the switching of babies, the roles of Mrs. Paltry, the unethical midwife and Mrs. Tilling the good midwife. It's a wonderful book and I thank Goodreads for the opportunity to read and review it. p.s. I'd love for it to be made into a movie or a PBS mini series.

I enjoyed this book. I appreciate its view of the realities of WWII for those at home in England. I wasn't as completely nuts about it as a British friend. She loved it and is passing it on to her compatriots. The right book for many people is always a good thing.

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir was excellent and well-written. Without spoiling any of the story, it is nice to be able to say it was a book leaving you with hope and happiness while telling of despair and sadness during WWII in England. I highly recommend it for a taste of what happened in England before the United States became involved in the war and for the hopefully romantic.

This book really showed you the determination and creativity
of a town of women faced to carry on while the men were
sent off to war. It encompasses everything from greed, to jealousy to love .

The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir

By Jennifer Ryan

418 pages, ebook, hardcover, paperback, audiobook, audio CD

Broadway Books, Random House, LLC,

February 2017

Historical fiction, Women’s lit

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book also has a second cover, which is absolutely lovely.

This book is written in the form called epistolary. Written with notices, letters, journal entries and notes by the women of the ladies’ choir.

Epistolary novel – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic “documents” such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use.

Using this format created an interesting insight into the story. It allowed the author to move the story along simply by changing to another journal or letter. Let the next person tell the story from their viewpoint, reveal their secrets, see things from their side of the village square.

I was sold on the beautiful cover that I saw originally advertised, the one on the hardcover version of the book. I thought it was so lovely with the women standing on the hills over their village and watching the planes. The colors were so soft and yet they glowed. I wish that had been on the Kindle edition that I purchased. The substitute cover is not anywhere near as nice.

The book is about the women in a village called Chilbury who form a women’s-only choir. They are almost scandalized at their own termidity, women-only. No men? Surely you can’t have a choir without men. But they do, and they do it very well. Prim, their new choir mistress, shows them the way. She shows them how to sing from their hearts and how it makes their music better. So much better that they win a contest. Prim is killed in the bombing and Mrs. Tilling takes the position as choir mistress. Mrs. Tilling really starts to change from that point. She finds her strength and her courage and she does what needs doing. Mrs. Tilling was a very interesting character. She starts out as a mother who is just trying to hold out until her son comes home from the war. She wants nothing to do with anyone from outside the village. She’s not even particularly friendly to those in the village. She’s a nurse by training, and has taken the midwife training so that she can help Hattie when it comes time for her to have her child. She’s worried about the other midwife in the village, Miss Paltry. As it happens, Mrs. Tilling is out of town the day the two babies due are born. And Miss Paltry takes advantage completely. Mrs. Tilling eventually figures out what has been done and makes Miss Paltry aware of the fact that she knows what’s happened. She also makes her confess. So she knows Miss Paltry’s secret. By extension, she knows the Brigadier’s secret, too. She collects secrets simply by being on hand when things happen. Nursing a fatally wounded soldier, she has an errand to do for him after he dies. She has to take a ring to “Carrington”. Carrington turns out to be another injured soldier on leave who was his homosexual lover. This is illegal in this time. But Mrs. Tilling doesn’t judge these two men. She delivers the ring and the message of love and keeps their secret. She even stands up to the young man’s father when he tries to interfere, Viscount Carrington. This earns her young Carrington’s respect and friendship, which she later needs to help with another matter. She initially doesn’t want anything to do with her lodger. She resents him because he is staying in her son’s room. Finally, she realizes that he is just a human being doing his job for the war and she starts treating him much better. She makes his meals and talks with him. They share the basement bunker much more congenially. They discuss his children, three little girls. She discovers he’s a widower. In the end, she marries him and moves to London with him. She loves him. She has come to accept that her son is a grown man now and will come home whether she is there or not, if that is his fate. The Colonel’s job is in London and there are plenty of hospitals in London where she can do a lot of good.

Venetia Winthrop is a young femme fatale. Taking every man around just because she can, not because she wants them. She even takes the man her sister, Kitty, desperately wants and believes will marry her. Venetia finally has to really work to get one particular man to give in. Alistair is mysterious. He’s an artist, but he’s much more. He’s into the black market and other things. She’s seen him speaking with a man in poor-fitting clothes speaking German and handing over a passport and papers. Then he disappears during the bombing. Venetia fears he’s dead. She also discovers she’s pregnant with his child. The word gets out and causes all sorts of trouble. A fight with Henry gets physical and puts an end to her pregnancy and their very brief engagement. Henry’s fighting with everyone and puts an end to Kitty’s allusions about marriage as well. It’s the loss of her child that helps Venetia finally to grow up and focus on being a decent person. Then when she sees Alistair in the audience at the concert, she knows she still loves him and only him.

These were the two women that I liked the best in the book. But much more happened. People died in the bombing. Babies got swapped. People got paid off. Money got stolen. People got taken advantage of. Bullies got straightened out. Women found their strength in joining together and singing. In supporting each other.

The author provided questions for discussion at the end. One of them was “What impact did the war have on women, work, and society? How do you think women’s equality has progressed since the Second World War? War made women stronger because they had to do the work men had been doing just to keep things running at home while the men were off at war. They worked the farms completely, even the hard, physical jobs the men used to do. They worked the factories the men used to work. It wasn’t easy at first, women had to build up the muscle to do some of these jobs and the stamina to keep going, but they managed to do it. The country didn’t stop because the men were gone. When the men came back, the women were in their jobs and some didn’t want to give up the well-paying jobs. It caused problems. The women lost their positions and the men were given their jobs back for the most part. But women had had a taste of running things and they knew they were strong and capable. They’d come out of the box and they really didn’t fit back in the box anymore. Men and women still aren’t equal in the workplace today. In the military, there are still more men than women. In combat, women are limited in what they can do. In regular workplaces, men are paid better than women for the same positions. There is still not equality, but not for lack of effort on the part of the women.

Physically, the average man and woman are not equal. Physically, the average man is more capable of heavier labor than the average woman. So, each should be paid according to their abilities. When it comes to brain power, gender has nothing to do with ability, so it should have nothing to do with recompense either. When that happens, we will have equality.

Highly Recommended

The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir

By Jennifer Ryan

418 pages, ebook, hardcover, paperback, audiobook, audio CD

Broadway Books, Random House, LLC,

February 2017

Historical fiction, Women’s lit

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book also has a second cover, which is absolutely lovely.

This book is written in the form called epistolary. Written with notices, letters, journal entries and notes by the women of the ladies’ choir.

Epistolary novel – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic “documents” such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use.

Using this format created an interesting insight into the story. It allowed the author to move the story along simply by changing to another journal or letter. Let the next person tell the story from their viewpoint, reveal their secrets, see things from their side of the village square.

I was sold on the beautiful cover that I saw originally advertised, the one on the hardcover version of the book. I thought it was so lovely with the women standing on the hills over their village and watching the planes. The colors were so soft and yet they glowed. I wish that had been on the Kindle edition that I purchased. The substitute cover is not anywhere near as nice.

The book is about the women in a village called Chilbury who form a women’s-only choir. They are almost scandalized at their own termidity, women-only. No men? Surely you can’t have a choir without men. But they do, and they do it very well. Prim, their new choir mistress, shows them the way. She shows them how to sing from their hearts and how it makes their music better. So much better that they win a contest. Prim is killed in the bombing and Mrs. Tilling takes the position as choir mistress. Mrs. Tilling really starts to change from that point. She finds her strength and her courage and she does what needs doing. Mrs. Tilling was a very interesting character. She starts out as a mother who is just trying to hold out until her son comes home from the war. She wants nothing to do with anyone from outside the village. She’s not even particularly friendly to those in the village. She’s a nurse by training, and has taken the midwife training so that she can help Hattie when it comes time for her to have her child. She’s worried about the other midwife in the village, Miss Paltry. As it happens, Mrs. Tilling is out of town the day the two babies due are born. And Miss Paltry takes advantage completely. Mrs. Tilling eventually figures out what has been done and makes Miss Paltry aware of the fact that she knows what’s happened. She also makes her confess. So she knows Miss Paltry’s secret. By extension, she knows the Brigadier’s secret, too. She collects secrets simply by being on hand when things happen. Nursing a fatally wounded soldier, she has an errand to do for him after he dies. She has to take a ring to “Carrington”. Carrington turns out to be another injured soldier on leave who was his homosexual lover. This is illegal in this time. But Mrs. Tilling doesn’t judge these two men. She delivers the ring and the message of love and keeps their secret. She even stands up to the young man’s father when he tries to interfere, Viscount Carrington. This earns her young Carrington’s respect and friendship, which she later needs to help with another matter. She initially doesn’t want anything to do with her lodger. She resents him because he is staying in her son’s room. Finally, she realizes that he is just a human being doing his job for the war and she starts treating him much better. She makes his meals and talks with him. They share the basement bunker much more congenially. They discuss his children, three little girls. She discovers he’s a widower. In the end, she marries him and moves to London with him. She loves him. She has come to accept that her son is a grown man now and will come home whether she is there or not, if that is his fate. The Colonel’s job is in London and there are plenty of hospitals in London where she can do a lot of good.

Venetia Winthrop is a young femme fatale. Taking every man around just because she can, not because she wants them. She even takes the man her sister, Kitty, desperately wants and believes will marry her. Venetia finally has to really work to get one particular man to give in. Alistair is mysterious. He’s an artist, but he’s much more. He’s into the black market and other things. She’s seen him speaking with a man in poor-fitting clothes speaking German and handing over a passport and papers. Then he disappears during the bombing. Venetia fears he’s dead. She also discovers she’s pregnant with his child. The word gets out and causes all sorts of trouble. A fight with Henry gets physical and puts an end to her pregnancy and their very brief engagement. Henry’s fighting with everyone and puts an end to Kitty’s allusions about marriage as well. It’s the loss of her child that helps Venetia finally to grow up and focus on being a decent person. Then when she sees Alistair in the audience at the concert, she knows she still loves him and only him.

These were the two women that I liked the best in the book. But much more happened. People died in the bombing. Babies got swapped. People got paid off. Money got stolen. People got taken advantage of. Bullies got straightened out. Women found their strength in joining together and singing. In supporting each other.

The author provided questions for discussion at the end. One of them was “What impact did the war have on women, work, and society? How do you think women’s equality has progressed since the Second World War? War made women stronger because they had to do the work men had been doing just to keep things running at home while the men were off at war. They worked the farms completely, even the hard, physical jobs the men used to do. They worked the factories the men used to work. It wasn’t easy at first, women had to build up the muscle to do some of these jobs and the stamina to keep going, but they managed to do it. The country didn’t stop because the men were gone. When the men came back, the women were in their jobs and some didn’t want to give up the well-paying jobs. It caused problems. The women lost their positions and the men were given their jobs back for the most part. But women had had a taste of running things and they knew they were strong and capable. They’d come out of the box and they really didn’t fit back in the box anymore. Men and women still aren’t equal in the workplace today. In the military, there are still more men than women. In combat, women are limited in what they can do. In regular workplaces, men are paid better than women for the same positions. There is still not equality, but not for lack of effort on the part of the women.

Physically, the average man and woman are not equal. Physically, the average man is more capable of heavier labor than the average woman. So, each should be paid according to their abilities. When it comes to brain power, gender has nothing to do with ability, so it should have nothing to do with recompense either. When that happens, we will have equality.

Highly Recommended

What happened in small English villages when the men left to fight World War II? In this charming novel Jennifer Ryan explores the possibilities and offers an engrossing portrait of a group of remarkable women (and some of their men).

There are many books, both fiction and non-, which deal with World War II from the British point of view, but this is one of the best that I've read. It's sweet but not cloying, and it made me both laugh and sniffle.

I thought the characters were very well fleshed out,and I really loved the format of each chapter being the writing of a different character. I felt it was a little slow going sometimes,but overall it was a very enjoyable book!