Q: With the war on, _______ will be closed down because there are no men to keep it going.
a) Major league baseball
b) Factories
c) Church choir
While a) above is actually an excellent movie (A League of Their Own), The Chilbury Ladies Choir is actually about c). The town vicar says their small town choir cannot continue with only the sopranos and altos, but the ladies decide they need music to persevere in the sadness of war. Plus, they argue, who will sing at all the funerals?
This book has five main characters, women of various professions and social status, all connected by the choir. While there was an element of predictability that removed the intrigue I was hoping for, I still enjoyed this story. Some of the story line was far-fetched, almost to the outlandish, but I sense that the author was trying to add a little bit of whimsy and happiness to the starkness of war. The lead characters were all women, of course, and each was dealing with a different aspect of being on the homefront during a difficult time. Worth reading, even if it isn’t a favorite.
