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Back When We Meet Again
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?

The writing process for this novel was quite different to my debut novel, Maggie’s’ Kitchen, which I spent four years researching and writing. It’s about a cook who struggles to open and run one of the Ministry of Food’s British Restaurants to feed hungry Londoners during the Second World War. My second novel, Eleanor’s Secret, about a young female war artist who wants to record the war overseas the same as her male counterparts do, was quicker to write, as I had developed more of a memory and research bank about the era and life on the Home Front. The novel is a mystery and has a contemporary storyline that solves the wartime mystery, so it was exciting trying something new as well. Writing When We Meet Again was more straightforward in one way, as I knew what I needed to do because of the experience on my first two books, although it was challenging because I made higher demands of myself; I wanted to be braver, create more drama, find ways of using different language and avoid cliched metaphors. It’s a bit like the saying: The more you learn, the less you know. Writing is a craft, and I can’t imagine that you ever stop learning, or wanting to try new ways of doing things, pushing your boundaries and hopefully creating memorable stories.

Each of your novels is set during World War II, albeit focused on civilians’ wartime effort on the home front. Why did you want to write about this era, and what do you hope your novel helps readers understand about this moment in history?

I came across the story of the British Restaurants that the Ministry of Food set up during the Second World War and found them intriguing and was surprised that I hadn’t heard of them before. Lots of other people hadn’t either and that’s what gave me the idea for Maggie’s Kitchen; what could be more important than giving people this most basic need in wartime, and food is so restorative. As I researched this story, I found other great untold stories in the archives and thought they were also worth sharing. Before that I worked as a TV producer so it was a whole new way of storytelling but there seemed to be more possibility with fiction, although now I think Maggie’s Kitchen would make a great drama series too!