Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

England's participation in WWII has been declared, everyone is rushing to do their part and Mary is no exception so she takes the position of school teacher. Things don't go well for the outspoken and unorthodox young woman and she finds herself attached to one young black boy whose dad is a musician. Zachary is as lost without Mary as she is without him and she brings him home to London where she becomes a teacher to those children left behind and she falls for the school administrator who is unable to sign up to fight. The merry band of Tom, Mary, Mary's friend Hilda and Tom's friend Alistair are all trying to do the right thing and the war gets in the way.
After teaching is no longer possible Mary and Hilda sign up to work with the ambulances and Alistair is off to Malta. The brutal effects of war are all too apparent and each of them deals with tragedy and loss. In London the war and grief mixes the classes and races as they share their own sense of loss and for some, hope. In the beginning there is a definite class system and racial prejudice but the war
makes common people do uncommon things , fall in and out of love and become heroes out of necessity.