'Hypnotism works like this. You get a man, it is usually a man, who has a way of looking into your eyes that reaches right clear to your soul. He tells you to do a thing you want to do anyway. You do it. And when it's done, who takes the blame? Him? You? The war? No one?'
"You know what they say about GIs and English girls' knickers, one Yank and they're off."
When Gloria met Ron, he was an American pilot who thought nothing of getting hit by shrapnel in the cockpit. She was working in a munitions factory in Bristol during the Blitz, but still found time to grab what she wanted. Ciggies. Sex. American soldiers. But war has an effect on people. Gloria did all sorts of things she wouldn't normally do - evil things, some of them - because she might be dead tomorrow. Or someone might.
Now, fifty years on, it's payback time. In her old folks home, Gloria is forced to remember the real truth about her and Ron, and confront a secret at the heart of her dramatic home front story.
A savagely funny, bittersweet story about love and heartbreak during wartime - this is Liz Jensen writing as never before.
