The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

Based on a true story, Kate Thompson’s The Little Wartime Library follows the highs and lows of an underground library founded during World War II. With powerful emotions throughout the tale, both elated and devastating, Kate Thompson brings a large cast of characters to life as they work to survive while living and working underground in the unused Bethnal Green tube station in East London. In short, The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson is a must-read for historical fiction lovers, and it will certainly make you want to support your local library in the process!

Release Date: February 21, 2023
Available from Amazon & Bookshop.org

About the Author, Kate Thompson

London-born Kate Thompson has spent much of her life writing. She’s worked as a journalist for twenty years, writing for women’s magazines and national newspapers, and ghost wrote five memoirs before moving into writing fiction. Her first fiction novel, Secrets of the Singer Girls, was a Sunday Times bestseller when it came out in 2015. The Little Wartime Library is Thompson’s seventh publication.

About The Little Wartime Library

A thoughtful-yet-quick read, The Little Wartime Library is easy to get into, grabbing the reader’s attention right from the start. The novel opens in 2020, face-masks and all, and has a time jump back to 1944. This was a bit jarring, at first, but comes full circle in a satisfying way.

The story follows Clara Button, a wartime widow who channels her love of books into her work at the underground bunker library. Clara is a strong-yet-quiet protagonist, countered by her outspoken best friend Ruby. The story of the women’s friendship is one of the primary plot points of the novel. Alongside this, the story focuses on Clara’s interactions with library system higher-ups who don’t appreciate women running branches in place of men. All this is set against the backdrop of active bombings and social struggles of World War II.

Plot Summary

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country’s only underground library, built over the tracks in the unused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café, and a theatre offering shelter, solace, and protection from the bombs that fall above.

Along with her glamorous best friend and library assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war rages on, the women’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it seems it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive.

My Thoughts on The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

I really enjoyed this novel by Kate Thompson! It was a lovely read with emotional highs and lows as well as interesting history throughout. The characters were well-formed and nuanced, and relationships were generally well explained, especially in light of how many distinct characters are involved. Thompson manages to create a complex cast of characters that hop in and out of the story as they hop in and out of Clara’s underground library.

In all, I found myself smiling to myself a lot while I read this novel, and tensely turning the (e-book) pages during darker periods of the story. When it ended, I wished there was more — always a sign of a great read in my opinion!

Where to Buy The Little Wartime Library

Kate Thompson’s The Little Wartime Library will be released on February 21, 2023 and is available for pre-sale from both Amazon and Bookshop.org.

If you loved The Little Wartime Library, I think you’ll really enjoy The Last Party at Silverton Hall by Rachel Burton as well! Read my book review and learn more about it here!

*This novel was gifted to me as part of a review program that Cats & Coffee is a part of. I was not required to post about the novel in exchange for getting a copy to read. All thoughts and opinions are my honest own.