Lily Baxter

Lily Baxter is the pseudonym for Dilly Court who writes Cockney sagas set in the Victorian era.

Lily’s first World War Two novel, Poppy’s War is a story about a thirteen-year-old East End girl evacuated to Dorset and taken in by a well-to-do family. Her second book set in the same era is We’ll Meet Again, set in Guernsey under the German Occupation. Having grown up in north east London, Lily Baxter also has strong connections with Guernsey and now lives on the Jurassic Coast with her husband and a large yellow Labrador. She has two grown-up children and four grandchildren who live in the same area.

Latest book: IN LOVE AND WAR

Lily Baxter - In Love and War August 1914. With the approach of war about to bring tragedy and heartache to families all over England, Elsie Mead longs to do her best for King and country. She heads to London to act as an interpreter for thousands of Belgian refugees. But although she enjoys her work, she longs to do more, and when the opportunity arises she joins the Foreign Office, travelling to France as an undercover agent. When circumstances force her to return home, she enlists in the Female Auxiliary Nursing Yeomanry. On the battlefields of Europe she must find the courage to help saves lives, living in the hope that some day soon she’ll be reunited with the man she loves.

THE SHOPKEEPER’S DAUGHTER

June 1944. Ginnie Travis is working in her father’s furniture shop, when the continued bombing raids and her sister Shirley’s untimely pregnancy force the two girls to go and stay with their aunt in Shropshire. Here Ginnie falls in love with an American, Lieutenant Nick Miller, stationed nearby. But she discovers that Nick has a fiancée back home and a heartbroken Ginnie ends the relationship.
Then news of their father’s death in an air raid reaches them. With the family left penniless and Shirley and her child to provide for, Ginnie is responsible for them all. And when the shop comes under threat, Ginnie is even more determined to make it succeed and build a life for herself and her family.

THE GIRLS IN BLUE

When her home is destroyed in a bombing raid over London, Miranda Beddoes is forced to take refuge with her grandparents down on the Dorset coast. With both her parents doing their duty for king and country, Miranda longs to do the same. She joins the WAAF and is soon working hard to help win the war
Despite her determination to dedicate herself to her work, Miranda falls for charismatic fighter pilot Gil Maddern - a man known for his recklessness and passion for flying. As the battle rages in the skies above them and she learns that Gil's plane has been hit, it is only the friendship of her fellow girls in blue that keeps Miranda going as she waits for news.. It is 1940 and Britain is at war with Germany. In London, eighteen-year-old Susan Banks longs to do her duty. Her secret ambition is to learn to fly - to serve her country and realise her dream. But she know it is out of the question for a girl like her; a foundling, unwanted and unloved and dependent on strangers for her welfare.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

POPPY’S WAR (Arrow 2010), WE’LL MEET AGAIN (Arrow) 2011, SPITFIRE GIRLS (Arrow) 2012, THE GIRLS IN BLUE (Arrow) 2013, THE SHOPKEEPER’S DAUGHTER (Arrow) 2014