Diary of a Wartime Affair

A fascinating period piece

Sunday Express

A remarkable record of private life in the years between 1934 and 1941 ... recounted with a precision and feeling that might break your heart. But it's droll and candid too ... a treat for anyone interested in the sturm and drang of life during wartime

Anthony Quinn, Observer

An extraordinary book, and profoundly challenging to all one's notions of that era. To read about a normal, educated, sensible, middle class working woman of the 1930s, literate, musically aware, a fan of art and history, who makes moral decisions that would seem more at home in the swinging sixties, or much nearer than that to our own day, is quite amazing.

Julian Fellowes

An unusually exact view of private life in the 1930s and 40s ... as seen through the eyes of an unusually intelligent witness: she is astute on questions of pacifism and is a passionate observer of nature. More important, it allows us a remarkably intimate window on to the complexities of a particular relationship... there aren't many diaries of this kind

Guardian

Diary of a Wartime Affair by Doreen Bates does what it says, essentially a tale of the Blitz and fucking (her 1940s word, not mine), in a startlingly frank and readable way

David Kynaston, Guardian Books of the Year

Fascinating... I found [Doreen's] sophistication, startling modernity and sexual/emotional ups and downs absolutely engrossing. Doreen is a great character. She's a natural writer, with intriguing self-awareness, and persuasive insights on so many things: nature, food, romance, art... Above all, I loved her appetite for life and physical pleasure, and her lack of shame. It is extraordinary, the way she has stepped outside the conventional morality of her time. I am delighted Doreen Bates's diary is seeing the light of day

Virginia Nicholson

I absolutely loved it

Sarah Waters

The explosive story of Bates's long affair with her colleague, William Evans, is recorded in the remarkably frank wartime diary that is finally published this year...

Daily Mail Book of the Week