Where There's a Will

by June Francis, Julie Maisey (narrator), Soundings (publisher)

Despite being part of the large O'Donnell family Milly has felt alone in the world since her father went missing in the Irish Civil War. Now, ten years later she is forced to flee her home and journey to Liverpool seeking a better future for herself. There she is taken in by distant relatives and eventually reunited with her paternal grandmother.

As Milly tries to build a new life she is haunted by her father's mysterious disappearance. Her new friends strive to help her find answers, but meanwhile Milly's mother seeks to remarry on the assumption that her husband is dead. Milly is caught up in the fallout when her grandmother learns of this plan, and the need to find her father is greater than ever. If she doesn't, her hard-won security risks being ruined once more...

Audible Audio

Published December 1, 2022

About the author

Although, June was born in the seaside resort of Blackpool, she has lived all her life in the port of Liverpool, home of the Beatles. One of four children, her love of stories began when her father told her 'The Little Match Girl', which left her in floods of tears, but also with a desire to make up stories, herself. As soon as she could read she was doing a three mile walk to the local library. She passed the scholarship to Liverpool Girls' College where her English teacher told her that she had a great imagination. Despite this, June did not believe she could ever be an author, so on leaving school, she became a cash clerk. She married at twenty-two, has three sons, ran a church playgroup for ten years and it wasn't until her youngest started school that she joined a Writers' Club and turned her hand to writing articles about What She Knew for a woman's magazine. But her first love had always been books and eventually she wrote her first two medieval romances for Mills & Boon. After doing another two, she had an urge to write a family story set in Liverpool during WWII. This was bought by another publisher. Since then she has had thirty-three books published.

Reviews

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite enjoyed this story.
Molly runs away from Ireland, where her great uncle is frightening her, to Liverpool. She has friends in Liverpool and also her grandmother. Molly is on a mission to find her father, he is missing and presumed dead but her grandmother is convinced he us still alive. An easy, light read with short chapters and a lovely ending.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

God, I couldn't wait to be done with this book.

The story is fine, the characters are fine—but the writing, I feel, is just... not good. It reads like the author usually forgot about something while writing and then quickly made a mention of it. I also didn't like how the sentences would sometimes run on, and on, and on. It was a hard book to read.

I wouldn't recommend this book, not even just for a casual read.

[Linda Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many characters

I thought there were too many characters I couldn't keep up with them and how they were related.
Secondly the name of Merseyside was not in existence in the 1930s and the use of Apartments what not in Liverpool's vocabulary at that time.
Wasn't Milly supposed to be older than 16 the way she was described she seemed older than her age.

[SUSAN GARRETT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bygone liverpool

A pleasant book to read. As a first time reader to this author didn't know what to expect but was surprised by the detailing of areas. Would have been lovingly read by my mum.

[Sue Hickling · Rating 3 out of 5]

good read .

[Kay Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant book

[Angela Budd · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hard read!

[Heidi S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far too many characters to keep track of, and not a single one was particularly likeable. The book was also poorly edited. I lost track of the times punctuation was missing, incorrect words were used, and at one point, two characters' sentences were written as one. It made for very hard reading. A poor first impression of this author.