Read V for Victory online

Contents ( 8)

‘This funny, heart-warming and beautifully crafted novel is a must-read’ DAILY MAIL

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Crooked Heart

Lissa Evans

When Noel Bostock – aged ten, no family – is evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, he winds up in St Albans with Vera Sedge – thirty-six, drowning in debts. Always desperate for money, she’s unscrupulous about how she gets it.

The war’s thrown up all manner of new opportunities, but what Vee needs is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. On her own, she’s a disaster. With Noel, they’re a team.

Together they cook up an idea. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war, and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn’t actually safe at all …

‘Darkly funny and deeply touching … it’s a crooked journey, straight to the heart’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘As airy and bouncy as a good Victoria sponge … there’s a great galloping joy in it’
INDEPENDENT

‘Spirited, quirky characters and a devilish wit … Why is Lissa Evans not one of our best-known and best-loved authors?’
SUNDAY EXPRESS

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Old Baggage

Lissa Evans

It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present.

In her youth, she was a militant suffragette. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill. But nothing since then has had the same depth, the same excitement.

Now in middle age, Mattie is looking for a new purpose. Giving the wooden club she still keeps in her handbag a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea – but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie’s militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle she stands for.

Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who simply refuses to give up the fight.

‘Gloriously entertaining’
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘A thoughtful, funny, companionable novel, offering an invigoratingly fresh vantage on a well-trodden period’
SUNDAY TIMES

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THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

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First published by Doubleday in 2020

Lissa Evans has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.