Audrey Clarkson and Eve Dawson grew up in the country manor, Wellingford Hall. Eve's mother is a lady's maid for Audrey's extravagant mother. The two young women provide contrasting experiences of the class divide and the erasing of this divide, in part, by WW2. IF I WERE YOU goes further and explores what happens if one of the pair quietly takes the other’s place when the war ends.
Told in alternating timelines, the detailed fiction follows the little scullery maid and the girl with the governess, and their families. Eve lost her father in the Great War. Audrey’s parents don’t seem to have much love for her, doting on her brother Archie, the heir. When war with Germany is declared, and Archie gets called up, Audrey is determined to play her part in the war effort. She and Eve join the ATS or Auxiliary Territorial Service, which has them driving London ambulances and changing wheels, just like Princess Elizabeth.
The war bride Audrey gains approval to live with her American family after the war, but secretly Eve replaces her, as Audrey has second thoughts. Well-off suburban post-war America is a long way from Eve’s origins. But her lies are bound to be found out, sooner or later. This may come across as unbelievable, and today it would be. But ID standards were lower at the time, and chaos reigned with displaced persons moving across the world, while the war was still being fought in Asia.
The strongest part of this story is the exploration of the five years of war endured in Britain, with nightly bombing raids, and the flying bombs in the latter part of the war. The bombing of working people’s homes and a chapel with service in progress shows there is no doubt that the aggressor intended to disrupt and maim to the greatest extent possible. Faced with this horrible truth, the Christian theme of the narrative has to struggle to come out on top, and the ending may therefore seem too sugar-coated. Still, having seen the brave efforts of these women, starting with sailing at night to deliver a small boat to be used in the Dunkirk evacuation, I can only stand in awe of the women of the day and wish them every success.
Lynn Austin is American which accounts for some American phrasing, but her research is excellent. IF I WERE YOU shows how the World War contributed to breaking class barriers and to friendship across the Atlantic.
From bestselling and eight-time Christy Award–winning author Lynn Austin comes a remarkable novel of sisterhood and self-discovery set against the backdrop of WWII.
1950. In the wake of the war, Audrey Clarkson leaves her manor house in England for a fresh start in America with her young son. As a widowed war bride, Audrey needs the support of her American in-laws, whom she has never met. But she arrives to find that her longtime friend Eve Dawson has been impersonating her for the past four years. Unraveling this deception will force Audrey and Eve’s secrets—and the complicated history of their friendship—to the surface.
1940. Eve and Audrey have been as different as two friends can be since the day they met at Wellingford Hall, where Eve’s mother served as a lady’s maid for Audrey’s mother. As young women, those differences become a polarizing force . . . until a greater threat—Nazi invasion—reunites them. With London facing relentless bombardment, Audrey and Eve join the fight as ambulance drivers, battling constant danger together. An American stationed in England brings dreams of a brighter future for Audrey, and the collapse of the class system gives Eve hope for a future with Audrey’s brother. But in the wake of devastating loss, both women must make life-altering decisions that will set in motion a web of lies and push them both to the breaking point long after the last bomb has fallen.
This sweeping story transports readers to one of the most challenging eras of history to explore the deep, abiding power of faith and friendship to overcome more than we ever thought possible.
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