A Daughter’s Gift

Mollie Walton

SOME of the Second World War’s unsung female heroes are being given their place in the spotlight in a gripping saga trilogy from Molly Walton, better known as the historical novelist Rebecca Mascull.

A Daughter’s Gift is the second book in this enthralling series which stars the women who worked at a Y Station, a signals intelligence site, near Scarborough.

Inspired by her visit to the stunning Raven Hall Hotel, which sits 600 feet above sea level in Ravenscar, near Scarborough, and enjoys a cliff-top view over Robin Hood’s Bay, Walton (pictured below) dug into this beautiful area’s wartime history and discovered that Raven Hall, built in 1774, was used as a billet for these wartime workers. And as the wartime home front has often been compared to people’s lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, in terms of the anxiety, fears for the future, restrictions on civil liberties and the grieving process of families who lost loved ones, Walton set out to explore the experiences of women in society, in work and in the home.

At the heart of these stories are widow Rosina Calvert-Lazenby and her five daughters – Grace, Evelyn, Constance and twins Daisy and Dora – and Raven Hall, the crumbling ancestral home of the Lazenby family, of which Rosina is now the sole living member.

We meet up with them again in September 1940, a year since war was first announced and at a time when the threats are becoming all too real. With Raven Hall requisitioned by the army, Rosina must do all she can to protect her family home from the rowdy troops. And after Rosina’s burgeoning relationship with young RAF Sergeant Harry Woodvine is interrupted when he’s posted abroad, the arrival of an older officer who takes a keen interest in her could also spell trouble.

Meanwhile, Rosina’s fearless second daughter, 20-year-old Evelyn, decides to join the Auxiliary Fire Service. Determined to help with the Blitz effort in London, she faces extreme danger. Two kind professional firemen, the Bailey brothers, take her under their wing to help protect and guide her. But with the bombings getting worse, there can be no guarantees. Who will be safe, how can Rosina protect all those she loves, and is love still possible with such high stakes?

A Daughter’s Gift is another superbly researched rollercoaster ride through the heartaches, dramas and perils of the Calvert-Lazenby family as Rosina and her daughters continue to adapt to a new and complex way of life in which love and friendship blossom, and the dangers and losses of wartime are never far away. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the North Yorkshire coastline, and with its rich and authentic portrayal of the changing role of women and the pressures they faced on the home front, Walton brings us an emotional and insightful story of strength, resilience and romance.
(Welbeck, hardback, £14.99)