200,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿 

Black Friday Sale on Now! Save up to 25% off Books, Toys, Board Games, & Puzzles! ✨

Not So Quiet . . .

By Helen Zenna Smith
Series: The Mermaid Collection
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
Discover your new favourite forgotten classics with the Mermaid collection - No 11: Helen Zenna Smith's Not So Quiet . . . with a foreword by Alice Winn. Nell Smith is one of England's 'Splendid Daughters', women abroad doing their bit in WWI. At 21, she... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3500
Pre-order
Releases 5th January 2027 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Not So Quiet . . ." now to secure your copy from our first shipment

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Discover your new favourite forgotten classics with the Mermaid collection - No 11: Helen Zenna Smith's Not So Quiet . . . with a foreword by Alice Winn.

Nell Smith is one of England's 'Splendid Daughters', women abroad doing their bit in WWI. At 21, she pays for the privilege of driving an ambulance to ferry the wounded between the front line and hospital.

Facing constant shellfire, half frozen, fed on slop, and enduring the lashing tongue of commandant 'Mrs Bitch', Nell and her sister drivers entertain no illusions about the war - unlike friends and family back home. Only their comradeship and letters from lovers sustains them.

As the war grinds on, the lottery of who lives creeps closer to Nell herself. A naive girl volunteered for this. But who is this woman nightly driving blind through hell itself?

Series: The Mermaid Collection

View all
  • Through A Glass, Darkly
    Celebrating 90 Years of Penguin Michael Joseph publishing with the Mermaid collection - Helen McCloy's Through A Glass, Darkly with a foreword by Gillian McAllister. 'They watch me all the time. In and out of the classroom, their eyes are always following me . . .' Quiet, gentle, young Faustina Crayle is dismissed from her teaching position at Brereton School...
    By Helen McCloy
    Paperback
    $3600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Down Among the Women
    Celebrating 90 Years of Penguin Michael Joseph publishing the Mermaid collection - Fay Weldon's Down Among the Women with a foreword by Jenny Colgan. “Down among the women. What a place to be!” So says Wanda, a former radical who left her husband and raised her daughter Scarlet to be as liberated as she. But twenty-year-old Scarlet, with an abortion...
    By Fay Weldon
    Paperback
    $3600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Answer in the Negative
    Discover your new favourite forgotten female classics with the Mermaid collection - No 7 - Henrietta Hamilton's Answer in the Negative with a foreword by Sophie Hannah. Frank Morningside, assistant at The National Press Archives on Fleet Street, is receiving nasty poison pen letters. His superior, Toby Lorn, wants to put a stop to it, so he calls on his...
    By Henrietta Hamilton
    Paperback
    $3200
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Regiment of Women
    Discover your new favourite forgotten female classics with the Mermaid collection - No 8- Clemence Dane's Regiment of Women Miss Clare Hartill, teacher at a girls' boarding school, has a bewitching ability to get her own way, whether it is among the staff or the pupils who'll do anything to please her. When nineteen-year-old Alwynne Durand is hired, Clare takes...
    By Clemence Dane
    Paperback
    $3500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Cost of Living
    Discover your new favourite forgotten female classics with the Mermaid collection - No 6- Kathleen Farrell's The Cost of Living with a foreword by Jane Fallon Idealistic Alexandra is throwing a party to meet a more glamorous crowd. Marianne, more sardonic, worries it'll be the usual sort. The party is in Alexandra's attic flat. Marianne will contribute a few bottles...
    By Kathleen Farrell
    Paperback
    $3299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Tortoise by Candlelight
    Discover your new favourite forgotten female classics with the Mermaid collection - No 5- Nina Bawden's Tortoise by Candlelight with a foreword by Eve Chase Fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean loves her family. But she worries about them too. Her mother is gone (no one will say where). Her father drinks instead of writing. Her younger brother Oliver has started stealing. And...
    By Nina Bawden
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Lucy Carmichael
    Lucy Carmichael
    Celebrating 90 Years of Penguin Michael Joseph publishing with the Mermaid collection - Margaret Kennedy's Lucy Carmichael with a foreword by Lucy Mangan. 'People seem to get over things, don't they? I don't know how, but they do - ordinary people. I'm very ordinary, so I expect I shall do what they do.' Lucy Carmichael is jilted at the altar....
    By Margaret Kennedy
    Paperback
    $3600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Fenny
    Celebrating 90 Years of Penguin Michael Joseph publishing with the Mermaid collection - Lettice Cooper's Fenny with a foreword by Jennie Godfrey. Yorkshire teacher Ellen Fenwick has never been abroad. But when her mother dies, this young woman finds herself taking a position as governess to an English girl in Florence in the summer of 1933. Little does Ellen realise...
    By Lettice Cooper
    Paperback
    $3600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • A Long Way From Home
    Pre-order
    A Long Way From Home
    Discover your new favourite forgotten classics with the Mermaid collection - No 10: Rosamunde Pilcher's A Long Way From Home with a foreword by Claire Daverley. When the aunt who raised her on a remote Scottish island dies, orphan Katy Kelsey heads to London to seek out her grandfather, Charles Kelsey. Instead, she encounters the Kelsey family's dashing lawyer Adam...
    By Rosamunde Pilcher
    Paperback
    $3500
    Pre-order
    Out 5 Jan 2027
  • Forever Amber
    Pre-order
    Forever Amber
    Discover your new favourite forgotten classics with the Mermaid collection - No 9: Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber with a foreword by India Knight. 1644, and Amber St Clair's birth leads to her noble-born mother's death. Raised in ignorance of her true origins, Amber is sixteen when she learns the power of her voluptuous beauty. Attracting the eye of soldier Lord...
    By Kathleen Winsor
    Paperback
    $4500
    Pre-order
    Out 5 Jan 2027
  • Not So Quiet . . .
    Pre-order
    Not So Quiet . . .
    Discover your new favourite forgotten classics with the Mermaid collection - No 11: Helen Zenna Smith's Not So Quiet . . . with a foreword by Alice Winn. Nell Smith is one of England's 'Splendid Daughters', women abroad doing their bit in WWI. At 21, she pays for the privilege of driving an ambulance to ferry the wounded between the...
    By Helen Zenna Smith
    Paperback
    $3500
    Pre-order
    Out 5 Jan 2027

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781405997065

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 22 October 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 15.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 192g

Pages: 208

Collections

Classic Fiction Coming Soon in Fiction Fiction General Fiction Helen Zenna Smith Historical Fiction Penguin Books Pre-order Books Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date Series: The Mermaid Collection

About the Author

Helen Zenna Smith was the pseudonym of Evadne Price, born in Australia (at sea, according to Price) as Eva Grace Price in 1888. In her early twenties, she moved to London and New York, looking for work. Soon returning to England - without her husband - she embarked on a stage career, married again, and turned to journalism. She began writing short pieces of comic fiction, including the popular Jane Turpin (a female Just William) stories. Not So Quiet . . . was originally commissioned as a satire of All Quiet on the Western Front, but Price thought that distasteful and turned to the diaries of a friend for inspiration in her tale of a female ambulance driver. It was an immediate sensation. Price also wrote over a hundred thrillers and romances under her own name, and appeared as an astrologer on TV. She died in Sydney in 1985.

Browse lists from our team

The Latest at Book Hero

View all

More from Historical Fiction

View all
  • New Release
    The Piano Teacher of Montparnasse
    In 1942, the Nazis came for a Jewish family living in Montparnasse, occupied Paris. In the chaos of their arrest, the eleven-year-old daughter fled to the only person she trusted: her piano teacher... The author of the international bestseller, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, returns with a masterful new novel that captures the astonishing bravery of ordinary people in extraordinary times....
    By Heather Morris
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Flying Girls
    A gripping drama from the #1 bestselling author, inspired by the pioneering female pilots who served with the Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. Initially viewed with scepticism, these women became a crucial, high-skilled, and often unsung force that ferried 309,000 aircraft—from trainers to heavy bombers—from factories to Royal Air Force frontline bases, freeing up male combat pilots. The...
    By Olivia Spooner
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Art Lovers
    New Release
    The Art Lovers
    The heart-stopping new historical adventure by the bestselling author of The Soldier's Daughter. While war rages across the city of Valletta, a local barkeeper's daughter, Valentina Camilleri, is on the cusp of womanhood when Flight Lieutenant Peter Fox falls out of the sky from his Spitfire and into her world. In that fateful moment, he captures not just her imagination...
    By Fiona McIntosh
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    27% off
    The Parisian Chapter
    From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and The Librarians of Rue de Picardie comes a charming and cinematic novel following a young woman from Montana who lands a job in the American Library in Paris, where she discovers the power of storytelling and writes her own Parisian chapter.'Stirring and rich with detail' New York Times...
    By Janet Skeslien Charles
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    16% off
    Inferno
    AD 60. Nero Claudius Caesar is Emperor. He is feared for his temper. He is known to be intoxicated by the power he wields. And why not? The Roman Empire stretches from the wilds of Britain to the deserts of Parthia. Nero is god of all he surveys. Yet dangerous traitors lie close at hand. Generals commanding legions. Senators whispering...
    By Conn Iggulden
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Circle of Days
    From the master of epic fiction comes the deeply human story of one of the world's greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge. A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his...
    By Ken Follett
    Hardback
    $4499
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    17% off
    The Soldier's Daughter
    The heart-stopping new blockbuster by the bestselling author of The Fallen Woman. Violet Nash has grown up in the shadows of her father Charlie's shattered dreams. It's been years since he walked away from the battlefields of France, a WWI hero but his heart in tatters, only to see it broken all over again in the worst way possible. In...
    By Fiona McIntosh
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Girl with the Suitcase
    The enthralling new novel from the 10-million-copy, No. 1 bestselling author. London 1941 When Mary meets a glamorous stranger named Elizabeth, she realises their lives couldn't be more different. But when an air raid forces them to take shelter underground, Mary's life is set to change forever. After waking up in hospital, injured but alive, the nurse mistakes her for...
    By Lesley Pearse
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    23% off
    The Lost Bookshop
    Evie Woods' stunning new novel The Story Collector is available now. The Echo of Old Books meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets. ‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’ On a quiet street in...
    By Evie Woods
    Paperback
    $1700
    Elsewhere:
    $2500
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • All the Diamonds in Paris
    Kristin Harmel is firmly in the top echelon of WW2 storytellers - HEATHER MORRIS A master storyteller - SANTA MONTEFIORE The best at sweeping historical drama - KELLY HARMS A dazzling diamond of a novel - HAZEL GAYNOR * Paris, 1942: Anabel Martinet is a jewel thief, descended from a family that has spent centuries stealing from the unkind and...
    By Kristin Harmel
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Listeners
    ‘By turns a beautiful love story, a fascinating glimpse into the horrors of history and a haunting tale of loyalty and courage. A marvel of storytelling’ CHRIS WHITAKER, bestselling author of All the Colours of the Dark The Avallon Hotel offers unrivalled luxury in the wild Appalachian Mountains, its curative sweetwater washing away the troubles of high society. June 'Hoss'...
    By Maggie Stiefvater
    Paperback
    $3600
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Atmosphere
    The new novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six. An epic novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle programme and the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins...
    By Taylor Jenkins Reid
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 200,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.