Synopsis
Manchester, 1944
Alison is thriving in her rewarding role at the railways. But when family tragedy strikes, her world is turned upside down.
Persephone is struggling with matters of the heart. Can she muster up the courage to tell Matt how she truly feels?
Colette is slowly learning to embrace life again after she left Tony. But will he ever let her move on?
Join the railway girls as they journey through life, love and war.
My Review
I am a huge fan of Maisie Thomas and I have been since I had the good fortune to pick up ‘The Railway Girls’ back in 2020. Since then I have read and thoroughly enjoyed every subsequent book in ‘The Railway Girls’ series. As soon as I finish the most recent book, I immediately look forward to reading the next one. ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ is the ninth book in the series and what a superb addition to a superb series it is! I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ but more about that in a bit.
It seems unfair to pick out one of the characters for closer attention since I love them all (well apart from Tony and Reg) but I have to say that for me, the star of ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ is Colette. Colette is a lovely young lass, who has certainly been through a lot of trauma and sadness in her short life. I warmed to her character from the start and ended up feeling as though she had become a friend of mine rather than a character in a book. I felt all protective of her and I kept wanting to jump inside the pages of the book to sort out those people, who were upsetting her. Something happens in ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ which means that Colette can officially close the door on one part of her life and look to the future. I kept everything crossed that she would find the happiness she deserved and get her ‘happy ever after’ ending. What happens? Well for the answers to that question and so much more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you.
The fact that I saw Maisie’s name and the words ‘Railway Girls’ on the cover of a book that I knew I hadn’t read yet was enough to grab my attention and draw me in. I grabbed my copy of the book and hibernated until I read the very last word on the very last page. My copy of the book was well travelled that day because it accompanied me everywhere as I couldn’t bear to miss a single second of the story. I developed my own theories as to what was going to happen and I needed to know if I was anywhere near the truth or not. The more of the book that I read, the more I wanted to read and the quicker the pages seemed to turn. I became so wrapped up in the story and in the lives of the different characters that I didn’t notice just how quickly the time was passing and how quickly I was getting through the book. All too quickly I reached the end of ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ and I had to say goodbye to Colette and the rest of the characters. I found ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ to be a gripping, tense, dramatic and emotional story, which certainly kept me guessing.
‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ is superbly written but then I have come to expect nothing less from Maisie Thomas. Maisie has an easy going writing style that is easy to get used to and easy to get along with. In fact reading one of Maisie’s books often feels more like a chat between friends rather than reading a book. I hope that makes sense. Maisie certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention and draw them into what proves to be an emotional story. Maisie clearly cares about her characters and this shines through in the very vivid and realistic way in which she describes them. Maisie makes her characters seem just as real as you and I. ‘The Railway Girls’ themselves ended up feeling more like friends than characters in a book and I felt as though I was ‘one of them’ too. Maisie has clearly done a lot of research into the time period during which the story takes place and this makes the story seem that bit more authentic. Reading ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ certainly took me on what felt like an emotional rollercoaster ride with all the twists and turns, ups and downs and well you get the picture. I felt myself go through the different emotions that the different characters went through. I love the way in which Maisie makes the reader feel as though they are part of the story and at the heart of the action. That’s how I felt anyway.
In short, I ADORED reading ‘Springtime With The Railway Girls’ and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to other readers. I hope to read much more of Maisie’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.
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