“Dear Miss Lake,” the fourth and final book in the series begun by “Dear Mrs. Bird,” suggests that it was time to wrap things up.
It’s been a charming ride with Emmy Lake. As AJ Pearce’s “Dear Mrs. Bird” opened, it was World War II in London. Adventure-seeking Lake joined Woman’s Friend, a magazine that balanced news for mostly female readers with attempts to buoy spirits during the Blitz that was then decimating London. Eventually, she settled into a job as an advice columnist (taking over for the imperious Henrietta Bird) and increased her responsibilities at the magazine while also helping friends deal with loss and navigating her own wartime romance.
The cozy series, which also includes “Yours Cheerfully” and “Mrs. Porter Calling,” has always been best when it’s a gentle workplace comedy, focusing on the culture of Woman’s Friend. Starting with Emmy Lake herself, Pearce’s characters are a winningly resourceful bunch and, even if you’re not a journalist, I bet you’ll be intrigued by their efforts to keep a magazine going in a time of strife, offering versions of the tips that were the magazine’s bread-and-butter (how to stretch rationed groceries for a dinner party, for instance) with guidance on new problems, mostly involving women’s increased role in British society.
Many of the women who wrote to the magazine had a version of a dilemma that recurs in “Miss Lake”: They realize they’re pregnant right after the baby’s father has gone overseas to fight the war, possibly never to return. Mrs. Bird was a believer in tossing difficult problems in the trash, never to be answered, but Miss Lake understands she can make a difference by facing conflict. Pearce again handles that theme deftly in “Miss Lake” — which, like all four books, takes inspiration from actual World War II accounts — but there is nowhere near enough Woman’s Friend this time out.
“Miss Lake” begins with a precursor to our work-from-home present: The magazine’s staffers decamp to the country to produce the magazine away from the constant threat of Hitler’s bombs. But we find out very little about how that works. How, for instance, do staffers with no access to Wi-Fi file their stories and design a weekly magazine? What, exactly, were the wartime restrictions placed on the media by the British government and how did publications deal with them?
The book’s best bits touch on that theme, when Miss Lake runs afoul of authorities by writing a column that questions whether the folks at 10 Downing Street understand how difficult the war is for Brits. But Pearce doesn’t really explore that theme. Meanwhile, for my taste, way too much time is spent on a trio of plucky near-orphans (their mom is dead, their dad is off fighting the war). The “Dear Mrs. Bird” books always have flirted with sentimentality but, in the scenes with the kids, they get to third base with it.
As a result, “Dear Miss Lake” probably won’t cut it with newcomers to the series, who’d be better off with something like Sarah Water’s extraordinary, Blitz-set “The Night Watch,” which deals with similarly resilient characters. But, if you’ve been following Lake’s adventures through the first three books, it’s worth picking up “Dear Miss Lake.”
The world around her has changed significantly over the course of just a few years and “Dear Miss Lake” reveals an Emmy Lake who has changed even more. The title’s nod to the first book in the series subtly hints that Lake has come into her own, and the book shows she’s now a person who is ready to help guide England into an uncertain future.
