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Back When We Meet Again Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  52. POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
  53. When We Meet Again
  54. A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
  55. Discussion Guide
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  57. What’s next onyour reading list?

Alice clutched Eadie tightly, her skin pricking with happiness, and knew that at last they were safe. And as the night pressed away the last band of gold on the horizon, she felt Theo’s hold tighten, and she shivered as a feeling passed through her, a sensation she barely recognized: one of yearning, which filled her with such overwhelming force that she couldn’t have prevented it if she’d tried.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

If you’re anything like me and you like to know the truth behind a story, then you are probably reading this before you’ve read the novel—except on this occasion, you really should turn back and read the book first, as it contains spoilers!

There is a belief that stories find you, and that was the case with this novel. It started with a family secret from a few generations ago that I needed to try to understand. How could someone sell their own flesh and blood? What I discovered was that selling babies was much more commonplace than I’d thought, and although I vaguely knew about the baby farmers from the turn of the twentieth century, I’d had no idea that the practice of selling and trading babies and infants had carried on for so long—or that the wartime conditions made it so much worse. Discovering how the legislation to protect them was postponed because of the outbreak of World War II just confirmed my belief that it was a story worth following.

While researching my previous novels, Maggie’s Kitchen and Eleanor’s Secret, I came across fascinating material about the role that books played during wartime, as well as the challenges faced by the publishing world. Books became more important than ever: for soldiers to read while waiting, to distract the public during raids, and for readers to understand what was happening to their world, as well as for escapism in general. But the industry faced a battle to overcome the shortages and challenges to produce these books as demand grew.

A great deal of truth and real events are woven through my story, from the bombing of the publishing industry in Paternoster Row in 1940 and the fact that the larger publishers really did offer affected smaller publishing houses peppercorn rent, to the book schemes in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as the Armed Services Editions and the Forces Book Club.