Welsh Week: A Mother's Duty by June Francis - Review & Giveaway

A family at war...

Raising three boys and running the Arcadia Hotel almost single-handed are enough to keep widow Kitty Ryan busy. She has no time for romance – unless it’s in the form of a rare evening out at the local picture house.

Then along comes John Mcleod, bringing with him a second chance at happiness. However, Kitty finds her sons unwilling to accept another man into their household.

Unless she can reunite her menfolk, the future looks set to be that of a family in conflict, in a world on the eve of war...

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Review

Kitty Ryan has to raise her three boys on her own and she also has a hotel to run. She doesn't have the time to meet anyone and is surprised when she feels something as soon as she meets John Mcleod, a Scottish man who leads a free life. He soon becomes a member of the family, which isn't easy, because her oldest sons aren't ready to accept it. It also doesn't help that John is strong, big and protective. Even though her boys try to resist him John thinks he acts in their best interest. He helps Kitty around the house and she's happy she doesn't have to do everything on her own any longer. 

When something unexpected happens John becomes even more strict and rigid and the household is in a state of constant conflict. There will be a war and Kitty's sons can't stay home. Kitty can't bear to see them go without having made peace with them and she tries everything she can to make things right again. Will she be able to succeed?

A Mother's Duty is a beautiful story about a strong woman who works very hard to feed her sons. She wants the hotel to be their legacy, a place where they can all work together as a family. Things aren't going according to plan though and Kitty keeps having to adjust her expectations. It isn't easy for her to live in a house filled with so many egos, but she's doing very well. I loved her character and spirit.

A Mother's Duty has over 500 pages and I found myself wishing it would be even longer. I liked it so much I didn't want the story to end at all. I enjoyed every single page and it was fabulous to read about Kitty and her men. It was also great to read about life in the years before WWII. If you like books set in this period, I highly recommend A Mother's Duty. I loved this book and am very happy I had the chance to read it.


Author information

Although, June was born in the seaside resort of Blackpool, she has lived all her life in the port of Liverpool, home of the Beatles. One of four children, her love of stories began when her father told her 'The Little Match Girl', which left her in floods of tears, but also with a desire to make up stories, herself. As soon as she could read she was doing a three mile walk to the local library. She passed the scholarship to Liverpool Girls' College where her English teacher told her that she had a great imagination. Despite this, June did not believe she could ever be an author, so on leaving school, she became a cash clerk. She married at twenty-two, has three sons, ran a church playgroup for ten years and it wasn't until her youngest started school that she joined a Writers' Club and turned her hand to writing articles about What She Knew for a woman's magazine. But her first love had always been books and eventually she wrote her first two medieval romances for Mills & Boon. After doing another two, she had an urge to write a family story set in Liverpool during WWII. This was bought by another publisher. Since then she has had thirty-three books published.

 

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