The Second World War saw women fully involved and experiencing work outside the home; the temporary nature of their new role was echoed in the fiction of the era, where the heroine's work remained a prelude to her return to domesticity. Their relative freedom is also reflected in wartime fiction that saw women fulfil a range of roles at one time -mother, worker, home-maker. From the blitz to secret surveillance, from film and radio to letter-writing, women wrote about it all and here Jenny Hartley offers a fascinating and enlightening criticism, discussing a range of authors including: Elizabeth Bowen, Olivia Manning, Rosamond Lehmann, Rose Macaulay and Stevie Smith.