A Strong Hand to Hold

A Strong Hand to Hold
Anne Bennett

A heartbreaking tale of love and loss in a time of war, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and Annie Groves.Jenny O’Leary is devastated one morning in 1940 when she receives a telegram giving her the dreadful news that one of her brothers has been killed in action. Grief threatens to engulf her, but as an ARP warden, tending to Birmingham’s injured after the nightly raids, she is well-used to the suffering that thousands are enduring every day.Linda Prosser is just twelve years old and desperately close to her mother and two tiny brothers. As the bombs drop around them one fateful night, Linda takes a risk which has disastrous consequences. Terrified, and buried beneath a mass of debris after her home takes a direct hit, it is Jenny who crawls through the wreckage of the house to rescue her.So begins a friendship which is last through the years. But when Linda falls in love with a man that Jenny despises, she is faced with sacrificing her future happiness for the friend who has given her everything…

ANNE BENNETT

A Strong Hand to Hold

Copyright (#ulink_321bf446-31c9-5df1-96f7-f4bfed528b2b)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Anne Bennett 1999

First published in paperback in 1999 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Cover photographs © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (woman); Doreen Kilfeatner/Trevillion Images (girl); Mary Evans Picture Library (houses); Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (airplanes, hand)

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007547760

Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007547777

Version: 2017-09-08

Dedication (#ulink_a905eca8-e8c1-5aa7-b9ff-2a36cd4948ef)

This book publishes in August 2014, the same month that my youngest daughter, Tamsin, gets married, so this book is dedicated with much love to Tamsin and Mark. xxx

Table of Contents

Cover (#ua69bb79a-2529-5f0a-aa24-baf67cf2c13b)

Title Page (#u653d6a6d-48db-543b-86cb-918135de9a8b)

Copyright (#u437fb5da-3eae-543b-b50b-a1c1c5762922)

Dedication (#u25433395-17cb-55e1-a0c0-ac1ccb91a226)

Chapter One (#u2cc7e752-7737-5d12-bca1-e6359328139f)

Chapter Two (#u8cebe5b0-4990-5a61-bf67-676dcb0f45dd)

Chapter Three (#u3a6a8ee5-2eb8-5bbd-94bf-8d9942a0acb7)

Chapter Four (#u3dab70e0-6903-53d0-b507-dbe945ed2503)

Chapter Five (#ub2faf390-2899-501e-9312-be25898d0e4e)

Chapter Six (#u912397c9-e943-531c-b1e7-ce4ef28b32b5)

Chapter Seven (#u300e7477-e00f-5b55-b723-4c496b19b64a)

Chapter Eight (#ub50a0962-b446-5835-bdc7-aa602ecc318b)

Chapter Nine (#u96134e28-54ba-578c-8344-6973a69f2911)

Chapter Ten (#u6432fc07-b3db-5c59-8ab8-127a26544003)

Chapter Eleven (#u1be14813-97a3-5d04-a790-a43644be4673)

Chapter Twelve (#ud9971f0a-c665-555d-a2d7-0aa43d9352fe)

Chapter Thirteen (#uf56f7a69-fb33-5240-963a-8530f0625137)

Chapter Fourteen (#u13d2f5ed-d08b-599f-a9ab-5ead48a16a70)

Chapter Fifteen (#u610546f4-1bc5-56fd-a663-e1438d95871e)

Chapter Sixteen (#u7887ff1a-3560-55eb-947c-592a82f7f176)

Chapter Seventeen (#u181e27d9-3cde-5151-ae54-afed4b7e3a9a)

Chapter Eighteen (#u74930360-f50a-5212-97bd-0ab41ccf0f6c)

Chapter Nineteen (#u4b838acc-bad1-5d2c-8be7-bf96de233282)

Chapter Twenty (#ufa36382b-ba63-5db3-8c84-edfe8ce11f8f)

Chapter Twenty-One (#u7a51bd1f-ab15-5baa-b3eb-0f7800a43b34)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#u26d88241-8650-5624-bba5-c65e04cd902a)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#ub57b9b2b-4711-54aa-906a-bff93091ac03)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#u978fca83-3fc5-5a0e-9f45-fdc08a8c7343)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#u076db7e3-d7fb-5545-90b0-d6582b4bcce0)

Chapter Twenty-Six (#ubdc9552e-338f-5bec-9dc3-3eee275f3194)

Acknowledgements (#uc3a3c997-d208-5bd7-8894-f88b1e393e49)

About the Author (#ua66b3b66-ee15-504f-b639-09ff4a4e00fd)

By the Same Author (#ufd27bc3b-7db2-53cf-945e-cf6612860e8e)

About the Publisher (#uff76e018-9fde-56a6-9537-9f1531abeb22)

ONE (#ulink_1aa40ef5-0ed9-5b14-8f30-77b88a032340)

Birmingham,November1940

‘Now are you all right, Mother?’ Jenny O’Leary asked, placing the breakfast tray with the pot of tea and toast spread with the last of the jam ration across her mother’s knees as she sat before the fire.

Norah looked at her daughter with a pained expression – the one Jenny was well used to. The older woman’s furrowed brow caused deep lines to run down her face; the bun into which she had made Jenny scrape her grey hair appeared tighter than ever; and her mouth was set in a thin line. Ignoring the question, she whined, ‘The house is perishing. Put some more coal on the fire.’