The Dover Café at War
By Ginny Bell
When I saw this book in a second-hand bookshop in Canterbury, I wasn’t convinced that I’d like it. It grabbed my eye because I went to Dover castle in 2021 and I thought I would quite like to read about it. I read the blurb and honestly I thought it sounded a bit like a chick lit novel; a woman having a baby out of wedlock in the 1940s didn’t intrigue me as much as other books have. However, it was £2, so I thought I’d give it a go; if I didn’t like it then I could give it to someone else.
When I started reading, it did take me a while to get into because the prologue set the scene by starting when the main character, Marianne, had her baby. But I thought, I might as well read it, there are only two books I haven’t been able to finish in my life. So I stuck with it and read the next chapter. And the next. And the next. I couldn’t put it down; I know that phrase is said a lot about books, but I genuinely couldn’t put it down. I was sat in the park reading it and when I had to go home, I all but ran so I could continue reading it. It ended up taking me 5 hours to read because I just had to know what happened to the characters.
It revolves around the Castle family and starts 10 years after the unexpected birth of the baby. In the 1940s, you can imagine how a baby born out of wedlock went down with the rest of the community; there was clearly a lot of judgement directed at the entire family. As the story continues, World War II starts rearing its ugly head and by the end of the novel it was in full swing. A lot of the men in this community were of course drafted to the war. This included the brothers of Marianne, and some of their friends.
I’m sure readers of this review can have a guess about the end of the novel, considering it is set at the beginning of WWII. However, there is so much more to the book than fighting. The family pulls together when they have to, making this a very emotional, heart-felt story.
I have to say, it did make me cry. So if you are after a book which can give you a good cathartic cry, then it’s perfect for when you want to curl up in a comfy chair with a cup of tea.
As always, the Wye Review recommends you purchase this book from your local independent bookshop.
Online you can use Hive or Bookshop.org, and if you’re lucky enough to have a local bookshop they’ll always gladly order a copy in for you. You can even borrow a copy from a library, again, if you’re lucky enough to have one near you.
You can read more from Isabella Bonnett here; she has written other reviews as well as other articles on various topics.
