We start with a busload of people evacuating Southhampton, heading to the rural town of Upton during WW II. The majority of the book is set in the WW II era, one of my preferred time periods, and it’s set in and around Upton England. I kept hearing about this book on Goodreads so I put in my request at the library.

But with the end of the fighting comes the realisation that Pamela was never theirs to keep.Ī story of courage and kindness, hardship and friendship, We Must Be Brave explores the fierce love we feel for our children and the astonishing power of that love to endure. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone.Įllen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband, Selwyn, had dreamed for themselves.

In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. ‘Whose is this child?’ I called.ĭecember, 1940. The last few passengers were shuffling away from me down the aisle to the doors. She was fast asleep on the back seat of the bus. Spanning the sweep of the 20th century, We Must Be Brave is a luminous and profoundly moving novel about the people we rescue and the ways in which they rescue us back. A woman a war a child that changed everything.

Liardet we must be brave download