In the spring of 1940, facing a severe shortage of men (there is a war on, after all), the vicar of Chilbury disbands the village choir. The women are needed for nursing duties, billeting evacuees, and generally keeping the home fires burning. But in the words of the indomitable Mrs. Brampton Boyd, "There's something bolstering about singing together." And so the women of Chilbury defy the vicar, forming a ladies-only choir that soon proves essential to surviving wartime in the small English town. Heartache, grief, scandal, even romance…all unfold in a series of letters and journal entries penned by a no-nonsense widow, a local beauty, the town midwife, a young Jewish refugee, and an observant teenager. I hesitate to call a novel set during the Battle of Britain "lighthearted," but readers keen on happy endings will find much to celebrate in The Chilbury Ladies' Choir.