Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in New York Times bestselling novelist Jennifer
Chiaverini's lively and illuminating novel about the ?munitionettes? who built bombs in
Britain's arsenals during World War I risking their lives for the war effort and discovering
camaraderie and courage on the soccer pitch. Early in the Great War men left Britain's
factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production arsenals hired women to build
the weapons the military urgently needed. ?Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun ? the
recruitment posters beckoned. Thousands of women?cooks maids shopgirls and
housewives?answered their nation's call. These ?munitionettes? worked grueling shifts often
seven days a week handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear. Among them is
nineteen-year-old former housemaid April Tipton. Impressed by her friend Marjorie's
descriptions of higher wages plentiful meals and comfortable lodgings she takes a job at
Thornshire Arsenal near London filling shells in the Danger Building?difficult dangerous and
absolutely essential work. Joining them is Lucy Dempsey wife of Daniel Dempsey Olympic gold
medalist and star forward of Tottenham Hotspur. With Daniel away serving in the Footballers'
Battalion Lucy resolves to do her bit to hasten the end of the war. When her coworkers learn
she is a footballer's wife they invite her to join the arsenal ladies' football club the
Thornshire Canaries. The Canaries soon acquire an unexpected fan in the boss's wife Helen
Purcell who is deeply troubled by reports that Danger Building workers suffer from serious
unexplained illnesses. One common symptom the lurid yellow hue of their skin earns them the
nickname ?canary girls.? Suspecting a connection between the canary girls' maladies and the
chemicals they handle Helen joins the arsenal administration as their staunchest though often
unappreciated advocate. The football pitch is the one place where class distinctions and fears
for their men fall away. As the war grinds on and tragedy takes its toll the Canary Girls
persist despite the dangers proud to serve determined to outlive the war and rejoice in
victory and peace.
