Corner House Books in Order

The Corner House series moves Lilian Harry's wartime storytelling to London, and more specifically to the Lyons Corner House at Marble Arch. The books follow a group of young waitresses, the famous 'Nippies', whose fast service and smart uniforms become part of a much bigger story about friendship, work, love, and survival during the war.

It starts with Corner House Girls, as war is beginning and the young women are still finding their feet. They are away from home, learning the rules of a tough job, sharing digs, making friends, and looking ahead to the ordinary futures they expect to have. Then history barges in and changes the scale of everything.

The tearoom never really stands still.

One of the pleasures of this series is the way Harry balances the bustle of public life with the private fears each woman carries. The Corner House is bright, busy, and full of customers, but beyond the trays and chatter come blackout rules, rationing, bomb threats, hurried marriages, and the ache of waiting for news. In Kiss the Girls Goodbye and PS I Love You, the war presses harder and the women have to keep smiling for strangers even when their own lives are fraying.

Because the cast is shared, the books can move easily between different kinds of pressure. One woman may be dealing with separation from a husband, another with prejudice, another with a romance she cannot trust, another with sheer exhaustion. That gives the series a lively rhythm and stops it from feeling one-note.

The tone is affectionate but not soft-focus. Harry clearly enjoys the camaraderie of the Corner House world, yet she never pretends the war is easy. The real emotional engine is the way these women keep one another going. Their workplace becomes a kind of second family, messy, funny, exasperating, and necessary.

If you like wartime fiction with female friendship at its centre, this is a strong entry point into Harry's work. The London setting gives it a slightly different feel from the Portsmouth and Devon books, but the same strengths are there: readable period detail, emotional honesty, and a deep interest in how ordinary people cope when ordinary life stops being possible.