The War I Finally Won

Ada has just had surgery to correct her clubfoot, and it proves her mother wrong. She is not damaged or deranged, and she is not crippled in her mind. But she no longer has a mother's claim on her either, and she does not know what to call herself now.

The Second World War is still on. Ada and her younger brother, Jamie, live with Susan, their loving legal guardian, in a cottage lent to them on the estate of Lady Thorton. Lady Thorton herself lives there too, along with her daughter, Maggie, so the rooms are crowded and tempers run short.

Then Ruth arrives. She is a Jewish girl from Germany, and the people in the cottage react with horror at the thought of a German under their roof. Ruth's presence adds another strain to a household already stretched thin.

The war soon brings worse trouble than a new housemate. Death moves closer to the family, and questions of right and wrong become harder to answer. Ada has to work out who she is without the old labels and how to keep fighting, and the story asks whom she will try to protect.

This is historical fiction for middle-grade readers, set on the home front and told from Ada's point of view. It continues Ada's story from an earlier wartime stay with Susan, and it moves between household tension and real danger.