A Clear Dawn by Winifred Peck – #1949Club

The three women of the McWatt family, Honesty, Mary and their niece, Bridie, sat around the interior grate of their little flat in Napier Crescent, Castleburgh, on a cold December evening in 1945, their eyes on the black marble clock on the mantelshelf, tense with anxiety and anticipation. The opening paragraph of Winifred Peck’s A Clear Dawn made me feel pretty sure I’d picked up something I’d enjoy. We’re in a domestic setting with a group of women and something is happening to shake things up – already I am squarely in the middle of my comfort zone. And, as I read most of A Clear Dawn on a very long train journey to Edinburgh, I quickly realised that ‘Castleburgh’ is a stand-in for that city. It felt apt. And all the more coincidental, given that I’ve had A Clear Dawn on my shelves for more than 20 years. As that opening tells us, three women live together in a small flat. Two sisters in their 40s – though, as often in novels of this period, they feel rather older – and a niece in…