If You Were the Only Girl - Anne Bennett

When Lucy's father dies and her family is plunged into poverty, she is forced to take a job as a scullery maid at Windthorpe House, home to the aristocratic Hetheringtons, who lost three of their four sons in the Great War.

When their only remaining son, Clive, returns home from his studies, he and Lucy strike up an immediate bond, which only deepens as Lucy becomes indispensable to the family.

With the outbreak of war ever more certain, the two fall in love and Clive is determined that the class difference won't keep them apart. But Hitler's troops are gathering and fate has something very different in store for both of them.


Published by: Harper Collins Publishers - Fiction
Year: 2013 - Paperback
Pages: 530
ISBN: 978-0-00-735923-3

'If You Were the Only Girl' by Anne Bennett is number 24 off the bookshelf.  Lucy Cassidy is young Irish girl forced into service after her father dies.  She is not happy when her mother forms a relationship with an old flame and when the church here's that a man has been seen at her mother's house the priest and the nuns threaten to take Lucy's brothers and sisters away from her.  The only way around this for her mother to re-marry but this would mean moving the family to the USA where her  new husband has his own business.   Lucy is very distraught and refuses to go with the rest of the family and continues to work for the Hetherington's.   Young Master Clive has always had a soft spot for Lucy but she has always known this would never go any further.  That is until Lucy leaves their employ to train as a nurse.  Clive and Lucy have never been happier.  Just when Clive is about to tell his family of his intention to marry Lucy his mother reveals to him the truth of their responsibilities and insists that he will have to marry the daughter of her long time friend in order to maintain their status.  At first Clive refuses but when it is laid out to him just the financial mess his family has gotten into he soon realises that he has no other choice but to agree to the marriage.  Lucy is distraught and feels betrayed by Clive Hetherington and thinks she will never be able to have such a love again that is until Doctor Christopher Gilbert convinces her otherwise.  Will Lucy and Clive ever be able to be together or are they both destined to marry another.

'If You Were the Only Girl' is a lovely book to read a definite Gosford Park meets Downton Abbey.

Happy reading one & all.

Mx