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  • The Marriage Bureau

  • The True Story of How Two Matchmakers Arranged Love in Wartime London
  • Written by: Penrose Halson
  • Narrated by: Jane Copland
  • Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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The Marriage Bureau

Written by: Penrose Halson
Narrated by: Jane Copland
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Publisher's Summary

A riveting glimpse of life and love during and after World War II - a heartwarming, touching, and thoroughly absorbing true story of a world gone by.

In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined 24-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London's Bond Street and set about the delicate business of matchmaking. Drawing on the bureau's extensive archives, Penrose Halson - who many years later found herself the proprietor of the bureau - tells their story and the stories of their clients.

From shopgirls to debutantes, widowers to war veterans, clients came in search of security, social acceptance, or simply love. And thanks to the meticulous organization and astute intuition of the bureau's matchmakers, most found what they were looking for.

Penrose Halson draws from newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, and interviews with the proprietors themselves to bring the romance and heartbreak of matchmaking during wartime to vivid, often hilarious life in this unforgettable story of a most unusual business.

©2017 Penrose Halson (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

What the critics say

"A book full of charm and hilarity." ( Country Life)

What listeners say about The Marriage Bureau

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