Will I love Keeping Watch?

Like Diana, Pip drew me right into her firsthand account of life as a WAAF and ultimately an air traffic controller. As good as any novel, Pip made me care about her and the people she encountered, many of whom did not survive to tell their own stories.

Yet far from being a gloomy story, Pip remembers the good times of being young and in an exciting job—the jokes, the camaraderie, the mishaps, and the adventures. There are far too few books like Pip’s that tell about the “ordinary” girls who “served with the men who flew.” I feel like… show more.

The WAAF played a crucial role in the RAF generally and in Bomber Command particularly, yet far too little has been written about or by them. This is the rare exception.

As Ms. Beck says in her introduction, the book captures not the exceptional, unusual, or heroic, but rather the everyday life of WAAF serving at the operational stations of RAF Bomber Command.

What I liked best about this book was the complete absence of melodrama. It is a straightforward, honest account full of ‘trivia’ that makes it a treasure trove of detailed information — something invaluable to the novelist!