The Land Girls

Victoria Purman

• Publisher: HQ Fiction
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781489273970
• eBook ISBN: 9781489273956
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

A moving story of love, loss and survival against the odds by bestselling author of The Last of the Bonegilla Girls, Victoria Purman.

It was never just a man's war...

Melbourne, 1942

War has engulfed Europe and now the Pacific, and Australia is fighting for its future. For spinster Flora Thomas, however, nothing much has changed. Tending to her dull office job, and beloved brother and father as well as knitting socks for the troops leaves her relatively content. Then one day a stranger gives her brother a white feather and Flora's anger propels her out of her safe life and into the vineyards of the idyllic Mildura countryside, a member of the Australian Women's Land Army.

There she meets Betty, 17-year-old former shop girl keen to do her bit for the war effort and support her beloved and the unlikely Lilian, a well-to-do Adelaide girl, fleeing her overbearing family and the world's expectations for her.

As the Land Girls are dropped into a new world of close-knit community and backbreaking work, the trio start to find pride in their role, more than that, they find a kind of liberation. For Flora, new friendships and the singular joy derived from working the land offer new meaning to her live, and even the possibility of love.

But as the clouds of war darken the horizon, and their fears for loved ones - brothers, husbands, lovers - fighting at the front grow, the Land Girls' hold on their world and their new-found freedoms is fragile. Will any of them make it through unscathed?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Victoria Purman
• About the Author
• Also by Victoria Purman
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-Five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
• Chapter Thirty
• Chapter Thirty-One
• Chapter Thirty-Two
• Chapter Thirty-Three
• Chapter Thirty-Four
• Chapter Thirty-Five
• Chapter Thirty-Six
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
• Chapter Forty
• Chapter Forty-One
• Chapter Forty-Two
• Chapter Forty-Three
• At last, recognition
• Acknowledgements
• Excerpt
• Copyright Page