While fifteen-year-old Rosie is certain that spending the holiday with her gran and grumpy great-aunt will be the “worst one ever”, it turns out to be a summer she'll never forget. When Great-aunt Eleanor comments that Rosie looks exactly like Queenie, a girl who stayed with Gran and Eleanor during the Second World War, they go through Queenie’s old suitcase and Rosie dresses in her clothes. But then she trips, blacks out and wakes to find herself in a version of Gran's house in which the decor is decidedly retro and the toilet is outside. When a newspaper reveals that it's actually 1940 and Rosie realises she’s somehow traveled back in time, she has little choice but to stay with the teenage incarnations of her gran and great-aunt, working with them in a Whitechapel outfitters factory while she tries to figure out what to do. Then, caught in the clutches of the classic time-travel conundrum (should she take action to change the course of terrible events she knows lie ahead, or will intervening in the past mean she might not be born?), Rosie meets her future grandfather and great-great grandmother, the latter of whom reveals an even more mind-blowing truth.
Featuring evocative details about daily life in wartime London, realistic dialogue and touches of humour, this is an accomplished debut with an amusing twist. ~ Joanne Owen
Stuck at her gran's house all summer with nothing to do, fifteen-year-old Rosie goes searching through some old junk and comes across a mysterious suitcase. It's full of vintage-style clothes, but when Rosie tries them on she finds herself suddenly flung back into the same house in war-torn London. With no idea of how she got there or how she can get back, she is soon caught up in a whirl of rationing, factory work, and dances, but comes crashing back to reality when she realises that if she can't find her way home, she may never be born at all...
Alison was born in London. She has been a lawyer, a child-minder and a professional fundraiser. She went to university at the age of forty-five, gaining a first class degree in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and an MA with Merit at Oxford Brookes University while continuing to work full-time for an overseas development charity. Rosie Goes To War is the first time-slip adventure featuring Rosie and her eccentric family. She began writing it while studying with award-winning writer Steve Voake . She was inspired by family stories of life in the Blitz, and her own daughter's lack of interest in history. Writing this story was so much fun, Alison is now planning a series of adventures for Rosie and her eccentric family
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