In true Jojo Moyes fashion, The Ship of Brides was a very well written story regarding Australian brides moving to England to meet up with their husbands following the end of WW2. The bulk of the women are quite young and most have only known their husbands for a very brief period of time.

The “girls” as they are referred to, 600 of them, invade a soon to be decommissioned aircraft carrier filled with the usual men aboard for their trip. It will take them six weeks of sometimes heavy seas, always heavy female drama to make the journey.

As expected, there are rivalries, meltdowns, and complicated backstories. The story starts in a bit of a disjointed manner but 400 pages into it, the beginning comes around full-circle, making good and heartwarming sense.

A feel-good novel. ( )

Brides from Australia come to England after WWII ( )

Jojo delivers again this time with a historical love story, this was cute and fun with a variety of personalities per the usual ( )

Australian brides who have married British servicemen are given the opportunity to sail to England to meet their spouses. The book is about a group of women on the ship and their lives both on and off the ship. I found this quite interesting. ( )

Digital audiobook performed by Nicolette McKenzie

In 1946 a group of women embarked on a six-weeks long journey to Great Britain, leaving Sydney harbor aboard the HMS Victorious, a royal navy aircraft carrier. The 650 (or so) women joined the crew of some 1,100 sailors on a journey none of them would forget. The women were all married to British service men whom they’d met when those men were briefly stationed in Australia during WW2. This is fact. Moyes own grandmother was one of those women and her story inspired this novel.

The novel focuses on four women: Jane, a 16-year-old teen without much education and who is ready to party; Avice, a society debutante from a wealthy family; the visibly pregnant Maggie, who’s leaving behind her father and brothers on the farm to join her husband; and Frances, a nurse who keeps mostly to herself, and wants nothing more than a fresh start. Moyes intersperses these women’s personal stories with events aboard ship: beauty contests, educational seminars on how to be a proper British wife, drunken brawls among the sailors, shopping in exotic ports, heart-breaking telegrams, secrets kept and scandals revealed.

Two men feature prominently as well. Captain Highfield whose Naval career is about to end, is tasked with getting his men, his ship and the women passengers safely to Britain. And Marine Nicol who is part of the detail tasked with guarding the women’s quarters and who has his own personal heartache.

Nicolette McKenzie does a fine job of performing the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to contend with and manages to make each sufficiently distinct, so I didn’t get confused about who was speaking. ( )