Love in the Blitz

 Book 16 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 19 - February 5

Love in the Blitz: The War Letters of Eileen Alexander to Gershon Ellenbogan

by Eileen Alexander

published 2020

Summary (via Goodreads)

On July 17th 1939, Eileen Alexander, a bright young woman recently graduated from Girton College, Cambridge, begins a brilliant correspondence with fellow Cambridge student Gershon Ellenbogen that lasts five years and spans many hundreds of letters. But as Eileen and Gershon’s relationship flourishes from friendship and admiration into passion and love, the tensions between Germany, Russia, and the rest of Europe reach a crescendo. When war is declared, Gershon heads for Cairo and Eileen forgoes her studies to work in the Air Ministry.  

As cinematic as Atonement, written with the intimacy of the Neapolitan quartet, Love in the Blitz is an extraordinary glimpse of life in London during World War II and an illuminating portrait of an ordinary young woman trying to carve a place for herself in a time of uncertainty. As the Luftwaffe begins its bombardment of England, Eileen, like her fellow Britons, carries on while her loved ones are called up to fight, some never to return home.

Written over the course of the conflict, Eileen’s letters provide a vivid and personal glimpse of this historic era. Yet throughout the turmoil and bloodshed, one thing remains her beloved Gershon, who remains a source of strength and support, even after he, too, joins the fighting. Though his letters have been lost to time, the bolstering force of his love for Eileen is illuminated in her responses to him.Equal parts heartrending and heartwarming, Love in the Blitz is a timeless romance and a deeply personal story of life and resilience amid the violence and terror of war.

My Opinion 

3 stars

I like that Eileen is listed as the author even though this book was put together years later after David McGowan randomly bought a collection of letters off of eBay.  I also like that they found and got permission from Eileen's grandchildren before publishing.  There were also quite a few photos in the book, some from the family's personal collection.

What a prolific writer Eileen was!  These letters would be a treasure to her family as well as researchers of that time.  They may be less of a treasure to relatives of the friends/coworkers she wrote about, as many of her opinions about their life/appearance/morals etc. were fairly harsh.  It makes me wonder if she was as outspoken to their faces as she was in her letters.

It felt longer than it actually was and that showed in how many days it took me to read it.  On the bright side, when I'm not fully engaged in a book I spend more time than usual on the little tasks that are easy to put off until another day...I accomplished a lot over the past week!