Tracy Baines will be familiar to many of you who have loved her short stories in women’s magazines such as The People’s Friend and Woman’s Weekly, so what better news than to hear that she decided  – roll of drums – to try her hand at sagas.

So what about The Variety Girls – her debut novel, published by Ebury Press? Is it a good move? Will we be impatient to turn the pages?

I should darned well think so, the woman has smashed it.

Another roll of drums –  an excellent saga series has begun, and what better subject than one with which Tracy Baines is familiar.

As a teenager Tracy  worked summer seasons at an end of pier theatre: shows, pantomimes – oh yes she did – and in time became Assistant Stage Manager, even meeting her husband there when he was appearing with the Nolan Sisters – he’s behind you …

All right, enough of the panto stuff.

But I have to share with you that I have had a tour around that theatre, and eaten battered plaice and chips at the restaurant. It was so lovely, I long to go again. The theatre, the stage,  the footlights… I could feel a song coming on, but was dragged out before I could humiliate myself. Oh, what a glorious world in which to set a novel. One of endeavour, doubt, and always, ‘the show must go on’.

So bring on The Variety Girls.

This heart warming saga is set on the brink of the 2nd World War, and circumstances have dictated that Jessie Delaney, her mum, Grace, and young brother Eddie, up sticks and move in with Jessie’s aunt and uncle. To call these relatives the sober-sides, the  ‘sucked a lemon’ brigade is to understate the case. Life is toxic, and miserable, but our Jessie is aspirational, she determines to escape onto the stage in her father’s footsteps.

Can she pull it off, especially as it means leaving her mum and brother, and what about Harry the boyfriend?

If she does leave, how can she rescue her mother and brother? Will she be the successful singer she craves to be? Will she still see Harry? Where will she live? Will she make friends?

So many questions, and to find the answers, and enter this razzmatazz world, you will have to read this well-researched song and dance of a novel in great gulps as I did, all the while so wanting Jessie to pull it off, just as the author most certainly has: an evocative, busy, entertaining read, which has well balanced touches of humour, vying with angst, and of course, more than a dollop of tension. Bravo, bravo.

But be warned, you’ll end up buying sparkly knickers, and dancing to the big band sound around the kitchen – oh yes you will.

The Variety Girls by Tracy Baines. pb, ebook and audio. Available from Amazon.co.uk WH Smith, and ASDA