The Girls in Navy Blue is a novel involving 2 generations 50 years apart, set in Norfolk, Virginia. One generation is shaped by World War I, during which 3 women from disparate backgrounds, are brought together through their service in the U.S. Navy, which unlike other branches of the U.S. military at that time (1918) made provision for women to serve in its ranks as yeomanettes, performing a variety of administrative, clerical, technical, and medical roles, freeing more men for service abroad. The other generation is represented by Peggy Whitby in 1968, a young woman freshly returned home from living many years in New York City. She is reeling from a failed relationship and has taken possession of a rundown, somewhat derelict beachfront house bequeathed to her by her great aunt Blanche, whom she soon learns, had served as a yeomanette in Norfolk 50 years earlier. Blanche is a distant relative who had recently passed away that Peggy never had the opportunity to know, for Blanche was the 'black sheep' in the family.

The novel is marked by temporal shifts in which the 1918 chapters are told through the eyes of Viv Weston, a young woman who left a bad situation at home to join the Navy in the spring of 1918. She comes to know Blanche and also a young German American woman from Ohio (Marjory Kunwald). Together the 3 women form a special bond as yeomanettes and endure a lot of challenging situations all through 1918. Tragedy ensues which tears this bond apart.

The other chapters relate Peggy's experiences of moving into her great aunt's beachfront house in 1968 and receiving cryptic postcards from a woman named Viv who seems unable to leave the events of 1918 behind.

On the whole The Girls in Navy Blue is an interesting, coherent novel that shows how the experiences of an earlier generation can impact a latter day generation, and at the same time, bring both generations closer together.