When the Sequel Surpasses the Original by Theresa Gauthier

I recently reviewed AJ Pearce’s Dear Mrs. Bird.  Given the opportunity to read an advance copy of the sequel, Yours Cheerfully, I have a lot to say about the series.

This book did what few second books in any series are able to do. It surpassed the book it followed.

Dear Mrs. Bird introduced us to Emmeline Lake, living in London during World War II and doing her best to Keep Calm and Carry On.  Emmy works as a volunteer for the Fire Brigade, taking calls about fires and bombs during the airstrikes that plagued England during those days.  She took a job for a women’s magazine called Women’s Friend and gets herself into a great deal of trouble because of her desire to help people.

Yours Cheerfully picks up where the first volume left us.  Emmy is still working at the magazine and the Fire Brigade, and she is tasked to assist the magazine in the effort to promote women working for the war effort.  The government recruits the women’s magazines to persuade women to do their bit for King and Country and work at munitions factories among other industries to keep the country going and to make the weapons, planes, and other things England needs to defeat the Nazis.

Before I started reading the book, I was asking my friends to recommend books to me that would leave me with a smile on my face.  I wasn’t in the mood for anything sad or dramatic.  I wanted something light and fun.  

Cheerfully Yours provided just that.

Emmy, her friends, and her family were already familiar to me from the first book, and having a chance to revisit that world was a good idea to me.  Little did I know just how much fun it would be.

Emmy’s biggest problem is that her strong desire to help people will get her in trouble, as will her instinct to protect or stand up to defend people she considers her friends and family. More than once, Emmy walks right into a situation because of these desires and you can’t help but think she’s only going to get into trouble. 

Juggling her job, her volunteer work, seeing her boyfriend when he can get leave from the service, and dealing with the threat of death from wartime catastrophes, Emmy’s not always as cheerfully yours as she might be, but she’s able to keep going and to keep a smile on her face when schmoozing with the management at the munitions company she visits for the magazine even when she’d much rather tell them off for their hardheartedness and outright stupidity.

Funny with well-defined characters dealing with life as it comes—tragedy, comedy, tedium, and elation—Cheerfully Yours will is a worthy sequel and a must read.