This week I’m joined by Rose Warner, also writing as Jen Gilroy. I have a huge TBR (to be read) pile, but think I’m going to have to add Jen’s new book to it as I love the sound of The Teacher Evacuees. Over to Jen to tell us more …
Thank you for hosting me on your blog, Morton. Years ago, when we were both unpublished, I remember chatting with you at an RNA conference. It’s lovely to see your career success and special to guest here and share my latest book, and first historical fiction published as Rose Warner, with your readers.
While some of you may know me as Jen Gilroy for my sweet, US-set contemporary romances, my first historical women’s fiction/WW2 saga novel, The Teacher Evacuees as Rose Warner, came out in September 2025.
In addition to a new name and genre, The Teacher Evacuees also marks two other ‘firsts’ for me. It’s my first British book as well as the first to truly blend my Canadian and British lives. As both a person and writer, I’m Canadian-British and although it sometimes leads to linguistic confusion (biscuits or cookies?!), I’m happy to call both places home.
Set on the British home front in the early years of the Second World War, The Teacher Evacuees has a Canadian heroine, Victoria, who must navigate both cultural differences and wartime village life, having been evacuated with her pupils from London to North Norfolk in September 1939.
In part inspired by a great-aunt, a Canadian teacher working in England in 1939 who was summoned home by her family as war loomed, my fictional Victoria instead stays and becomes a ‘teacher evacuee’.
Whilst considerable attention has focused on children evacuated from British towns and cities, the teachers who accompanied them, often women, have been largely invisible in fiction and the historical record.
The Teacher Evacuees, first in a trilogy, tells the stories of three such teachers who, despite differences in personality, social class and age, become unlikely friends. There’s romance too, as well as adventure, wartime danger and life in a small, interconnected rural village.
Victoria comes from my home province of Manitoba, Canada and a town, Neepawa, near where my dad grew up. Much like I did when I first moved to England from Canada, my heroine grapples with missing her family, the familiarity of home and the cultural ‘codes’—language, dress and ways of behaving—we take for granted until they’re no longer there.
Yet, again much as I did, Victoria soon has great affection for England and British life, especially North Norfolk and the fictional village of Hazelbury.
The latter is inspired by the many real Norfolk villages I got to know on wonderful family holidays when my British-born daughter was small. Whilst the name, Hazelbury, comes from my Canadian grandmother, Hazel, the book’s setting is also my love letter to Norfolk.
From scenes in Cromer drawing on real historical events, to the village school, shops and more, my story blends fact and fiction in an area where from abandoned airfields to coastal pillboxes, remnants of wartime history are still visible. When I lived in England, visits to Norfolk with its big, open skies were a poignant reminder of my western Canadian childhood. Now living in Canada again, writing about Norfolk, London and other parts of England, keeps Britain close in my heart.
Like my fictional Victoria, I’ll always belong in two countries with different ways of looking at the world. But in joining up my two identities, Canadian and British in The Teacher Evacuees, I’m truly myself as both person and writer.
About Rose Warner
Rose Warner, who also publishes as Jen Gilroy, writes historical women’s fiction/saga and sweet contemporary romance—warm, feel-good stories to bring readers’ hearts home. She has been a finalist for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Joan Hessayon Award and Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart® award.
Canadian-British, and although now based in rural Eastern Ontario, Canada, Rose lived in England for many years. She returns regularly to visit friends and old haunts, and to conduct extensive research in the WW2 and post-war periods.
When not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading, ice cream, ballet and paddling her purple kayak.
Social media and website links
Website: https://www.jengilroy.com
Newsletter: https://www.jengilroy.com/newsletter/
Blog: https://www.jengilroy.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenGilroyAuthor
X (Twitter): https://www.x.com/JenGilroy1
About The Teacher Evacuees
Evacuated to the countryside, she realises there are more dangers than German bombs in wartime…
Canadian-born teacher Victoria McKaye takes up a new position at a London school, but soon finds herself coordinating its evacuation to a Norfolk village along with standoffish spinster Beatrice and quiet young Nell. Victoria has to adapt to life in the countryside, petty politics and local busybodies.
When she meets attractive naval officer Louis Grainger, romance blossoms. Victoria is drawn into a clandestine world and told that she is helping the British government, but after she catches Louis covertly meeting a suspicious stranger in nearby woods, she fears the worst a traitor in their midst.
It’s a race against time for Victoria to discover the truth and keep the village and the country safe from invasion.
Buying link
https://mybook.to/TheTeacherEvacuees (available in e-book, paperback and audio)
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