A child left behind. A country at war. A love that endures a lifetime. 'This is storytelling at its best' Sarah Winman 'The perfect book club read' AJ Pearce 'Dazzling... fierce, physical and almost inexpressibly tender' Guardian Ellen Parr has always been sure she never wanted children. But when she finds a young girl asleep and unclaimed at the back of a bus fleeing the Blitz in Southampton, everything she once believed is overturned. As she takes Pamela into her home, the little girl cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she thought she wanted, for in uncertain times it seems the only certainty is love. But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never hers to keep... We Must Be Brave is an epic and intensely moving novel about the ways we rescue one other, and the astonishing tenacity of the human heart.