DEAR MRS BIRD

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER  

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake and her best friend Bunty are trying to stay cheerful despite the Luftwaffe making life thoroughly annoying for everyone. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper she seizes her chance – but after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding, she finds herself typing letters for the formidable Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt of Woman’s Friend magazine.

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Mrs Bird is very clear: letters containing any form of Unpleasantness must go straight into the bin. But as Emmy reads the desperate pleas from women who may have Gone Too Far with the wrong man, or can't bear to let their children be evacuated, she decides the only thing for it is to secretly write back . . .

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Irresistibly funny and enormously moving, and inspired by actual letters printed in women's magazines during WW2, Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller Dear Mrs Bird is a love letter to the enduring power of friendship, the kindness of strangers and the courage of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

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Published in hardback and e-book in 2018, the novel is also available on audio, read by British actress Anna Popplewell.

 

Dear Mrs Bird was the subject of a seven-publisher auction in the UK and a simultaneous multi-publisher auction in the USA. Translation rights have been sold to 13 further territories. The novel has now been optioned for television.