Secrets at the Dover Café

Ginny Bell 

A GRAND coastal house on the Kent coast, which played a vital role in Britain’s fight against the Nazis during the Second World War, takes a starring role in the sixth book of Ginny Bell’s compelling, drama-packed saga series.

Bell (pictured below), whose home town is Dover, knows both the place and its people well, and once again she sweeps us away to wartime and into the lives of the brave souls who spent the war years in or around the Kent port which was virtually demolished by enemy shelling and lost more than half of its population, mostly due to evacuation.

And in this new visit, we learn about the role of the Royal Navy’s Wrens in the Western Approaches Tactical Unit, set up in Liverpool by Captain Gilbert Roberts in 1942 to devise manoeuvres and tactics to evade and defeat German U-boats which were inflicting heavy losses on the Allies in the Atlantic.

But it is the unit’s satellite centre at Abbotts Cliff House on the high cliffs at Capel-le-Ferne near Folkestone, whose task was to listen in on German shipping communications, which becomes a feature of this new and exciting chapter for the assorted families and residents who readers have come to know and love. 

In January of 1942, the war is closing in on every shore, and when Marge Atkinson, an officer in the Wrens, is assigned to an elite group chosen to teach war games to naval officers, it seems like the perfect distraction from her heartbreak over Rodney Castle, the man she loves but also the man who let her down.

But then Marge, who has been assigned to Abbotts Cliff House for a new top-secret wargame that could turn the tide against the U-boats, discovers who her new commanding officer is. Years ago, Captain Thomas Bennett destroyed her family, and now she vows that she will get her revenge on him… no matter what the consequences may be.

Meanwhile, at Castle’s Café, widowed matriarch Nellie is trapped in a dangerous bargain. Allowing local Lou Carter to stash black-market contraband in her café basement before the war seemed harmless enough at the time. But when a sinister man arrives, threatening her family and demanding she store some mysterious boxes, she has no choice but to agree. Because if she doesn’t, Nellie’s grandchildren could pay the price...

Bell’s pride and affection for the town she knows so well shines through in this heartwarming saga series as the charismatic Castle family and their friends spring to vibrant life once again and we share in their dramas, secrets, laughter, tears, and fears during the war years when Dover endured so many bombing raids that it became known as Hellfire Corner.

And 1942 is turning out to be a turbulent year as past decisions catch up with perilous results for the unsuspecting Nellie, and Marge faces a battle for revenge that could tear everything apart.

Well researched, written with Bell’s trademark warmth and insight, brimming with emotion, humour and some little-known corners of real-life wartime history, and starring a cast of superbly drawn characters who touch the hearts of readers everywhere, the Dover Café series continues to be a firm favourite with saga fans.
(Zaffre, paperback, £9.99)