Dear Mrs Bird: Cosy up with this heartwarming and heartbreaking novel set in wartime London

AJ Pearce

Apr 2018 · Macmillan Digital Audio · Narrated by Anna Popplewell

About this audiobook

Read by Anna Popplewell, known for her role in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Richard & Judy Book Club Pick
Sunday Times Bestseller

Set during London's blitz and filled with warmth, wit and heartbreak, Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce is a wartime story about the power of friendship, the kindness of strangers and the courage of ordinary people.

London, 1941. Amid the falling bombs Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a fearless Lady War Correspondent. Unfortunately, Emmy instead finds herself employed as a typist for the terrifying Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine. Mrs Bird refuses to read, let alone answer, letters containing any form of Unpleasantness, and definitely not letters from the women the war has left lovelorn, grief-stricken or conflicted.

But the thought of these desperate women waiting for an answer becomes impossible for Emmy to ignore. She decides she simply must help and secretly starts to write back – after all, what harm could that possibly do?

'The most uplifting, lovely book about courage, friendship, love' – Marian Keyes
'Utterly charming and helplessly funny' – Jenny Colgan
'A proper comfort read' – India Knight

Ratings and reviews

This is a book of people who are looking for answers in a time when the world thought women should keep their business indoors..this is beautifully written with such compassion and empathy. it's one of those books you would want anyone who loved stories too read teenage to elderly...congratulations on a work that's brought so much enjoyment to others

About the author

AJ Pearce grew up in Hampshire, England. A chance discovery of a 1939 woman’s magazine became the inspiration for her series of novels, The Wartime Chronicles. Her debut novel, Dear Mrs Bird, was a Sunday Times and international bestseller and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards Debut of the Year and the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown for best historical debut. AJ now lives in the south of England.