In the arresting latest from Baker (Longbourn), a young typist in WWII-era London deals with overwhelming grief. Charlotte Richmond tries forge a new life apart from her dominating MP father, Sir Charles Richmond; her stepmother, Marion; and their lavish estate. Her older brother, Eddie, dies early in the war, and she sinks deeper into despair when her best friend El is killed in a German bombing raid. Charlotte, who believes she's being followed by someone she calls "the shadow man," suspects El was targeted in the raid, though no one else believes her and she begins questioning her sanity. Her family, long fed up after she refused to be in a debutante ball, has Charlotte committed to an asylum, where she's subjected to insulin shock therapy and overwhelming doses of drugs. Though the plot is never fully resolved, the shadow man makes a consequential appearance at the asylum. Baker vividly portrays the surreal sight of London ravaged by the Blitz and adds psychological depth to Charlotte's internal monologues (addressing El's voice, whom she repeatedly hears after El's death, she thinks, "You're shock. You're grief. You're not El.... If I ignore you, you will go away"). This stands above run-of-the-mill WWII fare. Agents: Anna Stein and Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (May)

Baker's follow-up to The Body Lies (2019) is a visceral, claustrophobic tale set in 1940s London during the Blitz. Twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond is living on her own for the first time, working for the Ministry of Information and grieving the loss of her brother, Eddie, in the war. Charlotte, like the rest of London, has learned to live with the terrifying sounds of bombs falling and to quickly seek shelter during the attacks. But when her best friend, Elena, dies during a raid without a scratch upon her body, Charlotte fears Elena was the victim of foul play. Several other women in Charlotte's orbit perish in quick succession, heightening her suspicions, and then she spots a mysterious man following her. With a chorus of the voices of her dead friends ringing in her ears, Charlotte turns to a handsome young man with a disability from a family of undertakers for help, even as her family suspects she's losing her grip on reality. Baker vividly depicts a young woman grappling with a mentalhealth crisis against the harrowing backdrop of the Blitz.

The latest from Baker (Longbourn) is set in 1940s England during the Blitz. Charlotte Richmond leaves Somerset to work as a typist at the Ministry of Information in London, lives in a rented attic, and tries to navigate this new world where the enemy is too close to home. She is determined to keep a positive attitude despite growing disillusionment, ineffectiveness, and paranoia. As if the air raids on London weren't already life-threatening, Charlotte gets caught in a scheme that claims the life of her best friend, who becomes the voice inside her head. Baker deftly captures the complexities of grief and the toll it takes on one's health. She highlights the generational and class divide that was heightened by the war, and a collective feeling of not belonging in one's own home or mind. But amid the tragedy, she leaves room for laughter, hope, and the comforts of chosen family. VERDICT Immersive, heartbreaking, and hard to put down, with an unforgettable heroine. Fans of Baker will enjoy the same compelling style the author is known for, and those who read World War II fiction will be delighted with her thorough research and fresh perspective on the period.--Cate Triola

Challenges--mental and physical--mark the two young Londoners who find each other during the shattering horrors of the Blitz. British writer Baker has set her eighth novel in familiar territory: the early years of the Second World War when the Germans bombed the British capital relentlessly. Her version is distinguished by her characteristic qualities of empathy, detail, and insight as well as her fragile central figure--20-year-old Charlotte Richmond, the daughter of a baronet, who has abandoned her class and moneyed background to work a menial job at the Ministry of Information while living in cramped digs in an unfashionable suburb. Charlotte's perspective dominates, but it may not be reliable given her history of mental instability--"a spell in the loony bin"--and the voices in her head, which multiply as her friends lose their lives in the raids, along with the fear she's being followed by a murderous "shadow man." She finds some small comfort, however, in a slowly developing relationship with Tom Hawthorne, a sympathetic, physically disabled young psychology student. As matters progress, Baker spins Charlotte's life and brain into a whirlpool of loss, danger, suspicion, and amateur detection, resulting in her family's sending her back to the mental hospital. Her incarceration there, a terrifying episode, heralds a change of gear in the story, embracing escape, safe houses, traitors, and the eventual revelation of a scarcely credible villain. With its evolving genres--from realism to gothic to thriller, laced with a burgeoning love story--the plotline becomes unsteady. Baker's readability and sensitivity retain their appeal, and the (literal) grit of the blasted London streets, softened by flavorsome Englishness--Chelsea buns, Iced Gems, tea cozies, chin-wags--lends immediacy, but the late, more one-dimensional thread of dastardly conduct threatens the novel's solidity. A powerfully atmospheric evocation of World War II complicated by its shifts between tracks. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.