14-year-old Beatrice Thomas loves school, but when her widowed mothers hours at the local sewing factory are cut she must find a job to help out the family and keep younger sister Tilly at school. The First World War has taken many men from the small country town overseas to fight. Beaty gets a job usually reserved for older boys, delivering telegrams for the Post and Telegraph Office. During wartime, the grimmest of news needs to be hand delivered, and the last knock people want at their door is that of a telegram delivery girl or boy with news that a loved one is missing in action, dead, or taken prisoner of war. Beaty's friend Caleb is away fighting and his letters have turned from initial excitement to the reality of soldiering, and then suddenly they stop. Beaty's delivery of telegrams continues through Armistice, peace celebrations, and the influenza pandemic. At the end of the book there is an historical note, newspaper clippings, photographs, and a section on Morse code. Another sensitively told and thoroughly researched story from Philippa Werry which would be great reading material for those students studying World War I, and those who just love a great book. ( )