Imagine working at the makeup counter in Woolworths one day, and the next day donning overalls for your new job on the Vickers Steelworks factory floor. The summer of 1940 returns to Sheffield where we see the STEEL GIRLS AT WAR. This book follows the determined, but in retrospect innocent, Christmas of the Phoney War, in which war had been declared but had not affected France and Britain.

Women of all ages are badly needed as the men troop off to the armed forces. The planes, ships, and weapons they will use are being made partly in Sheffield, not to mention civil engineering and railway materials. Looking forward to her eighteenth birthday, Patty Andrews is one of the younger girls in place. By this time, women are no longer considered a novelty and have become accepted as part of the workforce. Archie, Patty’s boyfriend, is planning a surprise birthday party, and the efforts to keep secrecy form the lighter moments in the story. Hattie is a new recruit, determined to do her bit. While stalwart mum Nancy Edwards has to cope with her husband Bert being officially missing following Dunkirk. She thinks it is better not to tell the children. Her friend Betty looks on the positive side, but Nancy’s finding it hard to drive the crane when she might burst into tears of stress.

The serious news and the evacuation of Dunkirk plunge the tale into the dark reality of a long entrenchment. At the moment food is being rationed but still treats can be made, mostly due to summer fruits and laying hens. But now the bombs start falling.

Based on genuine memories of the day, Michelle Rawlins wrote a nonfiction book, WOMEN OF STEEL, in celebration of the war workforce in her hometown. The Steel Girls fiction series brings their story to a wider audience, dressed with continuing characters, though no drama needs to be invented. Some older people had memories from the Great War, and they realised what they were getting into, volunteering as Air Raid Wardens and similar jobs. Life was big and scary for men, women, and children alike. They didn’t know it would take six years to win the war, but they knew they would win. I found some repetition throughout the tale, which slowed down progress, but the steelyard is convincingly portrayed and the women try to band together outside work as well. STEEL GIRLS AT WAR is the fourth book in an exciting historical series, with romance, family drama, and a look at the war effort in a hard-bitten city.