Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pierce

One of my sisters recommended this book and it was delightful. It's London during WW2. Emmy Lake wants to be a foreign correspondent so when she sees an ad for an opening at a big news organization, she jumps at the chance--only to find out that she's been hired as an assistant at a failing woman's magazine owned by the company. But she decides to make the best of it. The woman she works for is the formidable Mrs Bird, who writes an advice column--but only responds to letters she feels are suitable--which excludes most real-life problems like cheating spouses, unexpected pregnancies, and loves lost due to the war. Emmy feels so bad for these correspondents that she starts answering the letters herself and signs Mrs Bird's name, which as you might suspect, leads to all sorts of angst.

At the same time, we get a look at what life was like in London during the Blitz because Emmy also works as a volunteer at the fire department, handling the calls when people's houses get bombed. Our heroine is a plucky girl whose heart is in the right place even if she sometimes leaps before she looks.

The author said she came up with the idea for this story from reading the advice columns in old wartime women's magazines.