Canary Girls

March 1, 2023

In this latest from historical fiction queen Chiaverini, the women urgently recruited by the British government to work in World War I munitions factories include Lucy Dempsey, wife of Olympic gold medal footballer Daniel Dempsey. Not surprisingly, she's quickly drafted to play in the arsenal ladies' football club, the Thornshire Canaries--so named because the toxic chemicals they handle turn their skin yellow, an issue forthrightly addressed in the book. Prepub Alert.

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May 15, 2023
Chiaverini (Resistance Women) adds to the glut of revisionist war stories featuring strong women characters with a serviceable if overlong tale focused on England during WWI, where women were encouraged to take jobs in industry and agriculture. Former suffragette Helen Purcell marries an industrialist who converts his family’s sewing machine manufacturer into a munitions factory. Poor young April Tipton, tired of the grueling work of a housemaid, learns she can make a better wage in a factory. Lucy Dempsey’s famous footballer husband is away with the English Footballers’ Battalion. All three women converge at Purcell’s arsenal, where April and Lucy work as “munitionettes” in the Danger Building filling fuse caps with yellow TNT powder. Soon, their skin turns yellow, earning them the nickname “canary girls” but also giving them chest pain, coughs, and vomiting. Helen, with her clout as the boss’s wife, becomes the factory’s welfare supervisor to monitor the girls’ health. Meanwhile, Lucy helps organize a factory football team, a welcome distraction. Though Chiaverini takes too long establishing the characters, she succeeds at immersing readers in 1914 London, with convincing details of munitions manufacturing, stark class disparities, patriotic duty, and soccer matches. Those willing to go the distance will root for these indomitable women. Agent: Maria Massie, Massie & McQuilkin.

May 15, 2023
The prolific Chiaverini (Switchboard Soldiers, 2022) focuses on Britain's munitionettes, women employed in ammunition plants during WWI. Their working conditions were hazardous not only because were they handling explosives but also because the TNT powder they packed into shells was highly toxic, causing an array of health problems, including the yellow-tinted skin that earned them the nickname, canary girls. Alarmed by their symptoms, the munitionettes at the Thornshire Arsenal fight for better working conditions and recognition of their contributions to the war effort with the support of the boss' wife, a suffragette turned welfare supervisor and advocate. After their grueling shifts, munitionettes from all walks of life find camaraderie on the football pitch, eventually competing against teams from arsenals around the country in the Munitionettes League. But as the war draws to a close and the soldiers return, will there still be room for them in the factories and on the pitch? Chiaverini blends elements of A League of Their Own and The Radium Girls to shed light on a group of women whose wartime sacrifices are not widely known.

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July 1, 2023
A group of female munitions workers become friends and soccer teammates in Great Britain during World War I. In 1915, April Tipton, a 19-year-old housemaid, follows her best friend, Marjorie, to London to work in one of the "Danger Buildings" at a munitions factory--a job that pays nearly 30 times as much as her old position, offering the ability for the women to support not only themselves, but their families. While it's known to be dangerous work because of the chance that the bombs will explode, the poisonousness of the TNT the women work with won't be fully realized until late in the war even though from the beginning it turned the workers' skin yellow and discolored their hair--thus earning them the nickname canary girls. Helen Purcell, daughter of an Oxford professor, has married into the family that owns the factory. Determined to do her part for the war effort, she begins working at the factory as a welfare supervisor for the workers who are increasingly obviously being poisoned, advocating for the women to her husband, Arthur, who runs the arsenal. Lucy Dempsey--who's married to Daniel, an Olympic gold medalist-turned-professional soccer player now enlisted as a soldier--begins working at the factory to support the war effort and to earn enough money so she doesn't lose her family's home. Each of the women finds her way to the Thornshire Canaries, the soccer team for the arsenal, and as the war progresses, the fan base for the soccer league of "munitionettes" grows ever larger. Chiaverini has written a sprawling, ambitious story: It's part a play-by-play recounting of the Canaries' soccer games against munitionette teams from across Britain, part a history lesson about the life-altering work undertaken by women determined to be "The Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun" regardless of the risk to their own lives, and part a story of the emotional highs and lows of the women carrying on as best they could during the war years. The good, the bad, and the ugly sides of war on the homefront are highlighted in this uplifting story.

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