Cheerfulness Breaks In Audiobook By Angela Thirkell cover art

Cheerfulness Breaks In

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Cheerfulness Breaks In

By: Angela Thirkell
Narrated by: Elaine Claxton
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$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends July 5, 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

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'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York Times

It is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for breaking engagements and hearts, is finally getting married, and the whole village - especially her parents - breathes a sigh of relief.

By autumn, however, summer weddings seem a distant memory as war reaches Barsetshire. While the younger generation throws itself into the war effort with cheerful aplomb, older residents remember the last war keenly, and are fearful.

When an entire London school of evacuees arrive, as well as a number of refugees, the village rallies round to accommodate them. Some inhabitants, though, fail to welcome the newcomers with open arms.

First published in 1940, this is a humorous and poignant picture of wartime in a rural community.©2026 The Estate of Angela Thirkell (P)2026 Little, Brown Book Group Limited City Life Classics Family Life Genre Fiction Sagas Small Town & Rural Urban Village War Heartfelt Witty
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Critic reviews

You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own
The novels are a delight, with touches of E. F. Benson, E. M. Delafield and P. G. Wodehouse
Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself
All stars
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I've enjoyed reading the Barsetshire series by Angela Thirkell and am very happy to find them on Audible. I especially like following the story of Lydia Keith, a very engaging character. This book shows some of what life was like in the country during WWIi. it has Thirkell's usual prejudice for the well-bred county families and distaste for most Londoners, refugees, and evacuee children. We do see our favorite characters getting on with things that need doing despite personal losses and the darkness of the war looming. This book is more somber in tone than earlier books in the series. It was written during the war, before the postwar fate of England was known.

The war comes to Barsetshire and to our favorite Barsetshire families

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