You Are My Sunshine

Rating:
Summary: Great Story! A must read for any Historical Romance Fan!!
Review: "You Are My Sunshine" tell of the story of four young Birtish women who served in the WAAF working with the air ballons. Ms. Saxton gives the reader a real feeling of what the men and women face during one of England darkest hours. The Anglo slang also give the book a good feel. Overall, "You Are My Sunshine" is a great Historical novel!

Rating:
Summary: Good History, weak characters
Review: "You Are My Sunshine" tell of the story of four young Birtish women who served in the WAAF working with the air ballons. Ms. Saxton gives the reader a real feeling of what the men and women face during one of England darkest hours. The Anglo slang also give the book a good feel. Overall, "You Are My Sunshine" is a great Historical novel!

Rating:
Summary: A very good read
Review: In 1941 during England's "finest hour", things looked awfully bleak. With the men off fighting Hitler, women began to join the military performing support jobs. These British lasses come from different parts of the country with different backgrounds, but many have given up their social lives to do historically male jobs.

Kay marries, makes love, and sends her spouse off to war before joining the BOP (balloon operatives) line. At work, she meets and befriends Emily (a shy Welsh farmer's daughter leaving home for the first time), Biddy (an Irishwoman inner city survivor of the Nazi bombing raids), and Jo (person who enjoys defying authority). Together, they help each other survive.

YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE is a well-written World War II historical novel that centers on the rarely chronicled war efforts of females. The four lead characters seem authentic as the audience can picture them working with the air balloons as well as their relationships with one another and others. The use of Anglo slang adds to the genuine feel of the plot, but also proves difficulty in understanding and at times slows the story line down. Judith Saxon has written an interesting tale that World War II purists will find quite refreshing.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: disappointing - nowhere near as well done as previous novels
Review: To my mind, this is yet another example of the sad fact that successful authors rarely get better as they get older. She starts with a good idea, which is to set the story in England during WWII, concentrating on a group of women working with barrage balloons, which is interesting to read about. Unfortunately the character development and plot are nothing special. There are four main characters, each with careers and love-lives to follow over the 4 or so years covered, and the story progresses very fast to cover all this material, without ever really drawing the reader in, apart from the beginning of the book which focuses on their boot camp training.

My summary - don't bother.

Rating:
Summary: Good History, weak characters
Review: When I first came upon this book, I was excited to read it, I have read several other books by this author, each of them interesting and hard to put down. "You Are My Sunshine" was written in an interesting time, Ms. Saxton does a good job of detailing what life was like during the war, especially for women. Her description of working the ballons and life during war time seems very authentic. However, her characters are boring, and have no real depth, I found it hard to really like any of them. She never really gets behind what makes them tick. The plot was very weak, and somewhat typical.

If you are interested in World War II fiction, I would recommend you read "This Royal Breed", by Judith Saxton, this book was much better written, with great characters, suspense, and good historical content.