Initially, Mattie seems like somewhat of a comic figure. She’s an old battle axe who doesn’t seem to recognize that it’s time to put the axe up on the wall. While her mannerisms can be amusing, and her stubbornness is plenty infuriating to her friends and neighbors, she’s also right. Those two things don’t cancel each other out.

It seemed pretty convincing to me. I liked the fact Evans didn't try to hard to include historical details, but it felt right for the time and place. I know Hampstead and the health, and I don't think it's probably changed that much over the years. I’ve immediately begun the author’s next book ( ‘Old Baggage’), which includes some of the same characters, but the events of which take place before this book. Wartime is a time of "make-do". Mend and reuse older clothes, plant that Victory Garden to get vegetables, scam your neighbors, donate scrap to be used to make airplanes, etc. Hold it, "scam your neighbors"? How does THAT make the list? Well, read Lissa Evans' charming novel, "Crooked Heart", and you'll find out.” I liked Mattie a lot, though I think she would drive me mad if she was a friend of mine with her insistence that she is right, even when she probably isn't. I liked the way she mostly loved by her principles and she was kind. She also never gave up on anyone, which in part contributed to the disaster when she cheated over the quiz. She was so desperate to engage Inez that she told her the answer. She also had blind spots, but I liked that she was willing to listen when her friends told her about them. But not far. The evacuation train takes them only to St. Albans, an old Roman city 20 miles north of central London, and closer still to the northern suburbs in which Noel had been living. Being an awkward-looking boy, Noel is not taken by any of the more desirable foster-parents, and ends up with a widow named Vee Sedge, who leads a precarious existence in rented accommodation with her young adult (but militarily unfit) son Donald and semi-invalid mother, evading landlords and rate-collectors and trying to devise schemes for making money by inventive but dodgy means. (Unknown to Vee, Donald also has money-making schemes, rather more profitable than hers, but also more dangerous). Two more different people than Noel and Vee could hardly be imagined, but nonetheless, they manage to bond.

As always, the delight of reading Evans comes from the way in which the mundane and the magical collide: a Christmas dinner is saved from disaster by a game of sardines; a bombed-out landscape becomes a country of half-hidden treasures. What happens isn't really the point; the story is about people whose love for each other is the breath of life for them. And how much that costs. And who, in the end, must pay for it. That is the sum total of living life, after all, counting costs and weighing benefits and, in the end, accepting the evidence of honest and trustworthy scales as The Truth. Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."” I loved this quirky and fun story. Mattie is a brilliant and charming main character. She’s formidable and fights hard for her life passions. She’s a leader and isn’t afraid to say and do the hard things. How inspiring is that? She made me think and feel and those are the things I love most in a main character. It is intriguing and thought-provoking to consider after good portions of their lives dedicated to endlessly fight for the right to vote, what did these women go on to do, once voting rights were granted? How does one find purpose again after a victory won in that way?

Old Baggage is a gloriously entertaining and deeply moving novel about what courageous women do when society does not afford them a role’ Sunday Express

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Mattie feels she has no purpose in life. She's now middle aged and feels she is seen by others as old baggage. When Mattie meets an old suffragette friend who is now a facist, Mattie decides to take on a new challenge. Although this story can be a bit slow in parts, it can also be engaging and funny in others. It is quite informative on the facts about the suffragettes lives. You can't help but like Mattie, a wonderful character. She makes mistakes but is not afraid to fight for what she believes in. London 1944. In a large house in Hemstead Heath, Vee Sedge is just about scraping by. She takes in lodges so that she can feed, clothe and educate her young charge, Noel. She witnesses a road accident and finds herself in court. But this could be potentially disastrous for Vee and Noel as neither of them are who they say they are.

We were a battering ram, Mattie was won’t to say. Together, we broke down the door, but beyond that splintered door had been a dozen more doors, and scattered by their momentum, some women had tried one and some another, and some had given up and turned away and it seemed to The Flea that all that unity and passion had dissipated. Old Baggage by Lissa Evans Lissa Evans has a keen eye for social context, cleverly weaving into the narrative details about the realities of life for working class women in the 1920s. Burdened down with too many mouths to feed on a pittance; ignorant of basic principles about disease and health; confined to house and hearth with few opportunities to find a better life. Mattie is so single focused in her fight against political inequalities she is oblivious to these social inequalities. It’s The Flea, who as a health worker, witnesses poverty and the resulting ill health every day. Instead of slogans and sashes, she offers practical help on hygiene and nutrition, gently trying to nudge the women to adopt her advice. Vee had other plans for making money from the war, and she found that a bright, young boy could be a very useful ally; Noel instinctively helped Vee and he found himself enjoying his new role. The two of them became a team. Mattie was once a fearless warrior in the fight for a woman’s right to vote. In the early 1900s she stormed the barricades, protested outside Parliament, smashed windows and ended up in prison five times. It’s now 1928; the heady excitement of those days is over and the band of women with whom she marched and sang are scattered to the four winds. As surprising as this sounds, this was a heartwarming tale. I know WWII Historical doesn’t immediately bring up thoughts of humor and a smile on your face as you finish reading, but Crooked Hearts did that. This very unlikely duo has stolen my heart.

As far as everybody else is concerned, Vee is known as Mrs Margery Overs. The reasons why, we discover later on. Noel also has a complicated past, some of which it seems was covered in a previous book – this is one time where I wished I had read the others. The paragraph above was the first paragraph of my review of British author Lissa Evans’s novel, “Crooked Hearts”. The book was a wonderful picture of 1939 England, right after war had been declared on September 3rd. The government, frightened by predicted bombings by the Germans, made arrangements to send the children of London to safety elsewhere in England. The children, usually sent in school groups, were “adopted” by people living in small towns or suburbs, who were paid by the British government to look after the children. “Paid by the government”, is the important fact here. Noel is a ten-year-old boy who has lived with his Godmother Mattie for most of his life. We don't know why he lived with her and not his parents, but she has moulded him into a tiny shadow of herself. Mattie was a suffragette, she didn't agree with school, or with war and Noel has had a most unusual childhood. The story begins with Mattie's demise into senile dementia, and Noel does his best to cover up for her, but it's clear that he can't carry on for much longer. The men in this novel are very much on the periphery. Did you find that refreshing or would you have liked at least one to play a more major role? It was only on a second read that I realised that the male character feature so much on the edges. Evans draws them so well, that I saw them as playing a much more major part. The old friend she has lunch with, or the husband that brings a drink to the car. I thought the scene at the end when she realises that Inez's father is a good father was very telling. When she finds herself under the watch of the police again after a street robbery, she soon finds a new way of feeling involved in the world and inspiring a new generation of young girls to be educated and feel inspired to think more of themselves as she starts a Girls Club on Hampstead Heath, teaching them a variety of skills.