Dear Miss Lake

The spirited conclusion to Pearce’s Emmy Lake Chronicles (after Mrs. Porter Calling) finds the journalist and her colleagues facing triumphs and tragedies near the end of WWII. In 1944, Emmy and the rest of the staff at Woman’s Friend magazine move their operations from London to the countryside for safety, where they stay for the summer at a home belonging to the grandmother of Emmy’s best friend. Meanwhile, Emmy’s husband, Charles, an army major, fights in Europe. Even as she worries about Charles’s fate, Emmy’s career blossoms, and she becomes a war correspondent in Belgium, focusing on the plight of British prisoners of war. Emmy also continues offering advice to readers in her Yours Cheerfully column, in which she encourages women to keep children born out of wedlock, a controversial issue that hits home when one of the magazine’s staffers is unexpectedly pregnant. The fast-paced plot is driven by unrelenting news of casualties on the Western Front, but what hits hardest is the sense of camaraderie among the women. It’s a satisfying finale. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider. (Aug.)