I only bought this because the price came down to 99p on Kindle. Now I'm wishing I hadn't bothered. What a mess! Like Sex and the City in some vague historical setting - the blurb says the early 20s, but I think the author must have switched at the last minute to cash in on the anniversary of the First World War because the anachronisms are ridiculous. I had to laugh when I finally got to the end, after speed reading through half the book, to find a bibliography - all great titles, shame Adele Parks didn't stop to read any. Seriously - babydoll nightgowns, nylon housecoats, doing the lindy hop ten years before time, and talk of 'Inheritance Tax' (death duties) and single women chaperoning debutantes. Is there a prize for spotting the most slip-ups?

Time travel aside, my interest plummeted when I realised I was reading a derivative romance novel, and little more a poor attempt to update both Lady Chatterley's Lover and Anna Karenina (I dearly wish Lydia had thrown herself under a train, and taken her walking cliche of a lover with her. Yeesh). Everybody's lives revolve around sex. Lydia is married but has mind-blowing sex with her gamekeeper - sorry, a stranger at a party and can think of nothing else, ever. Also the descriptions of 'love making' are worthy of the Bad Sex Award. I think we're supposed to believe that 'Lid' and Edgar are star-cross'd lovers, but she's randy and he's deranged. Ava is a glittering Mary Sue - sorry, Bright Young Thing, who shags her way through society until one cad beats her up, then she becomes a do-gooder. Sarah was widowed by the war but Still Wants Sex, damn it, and poor ugly, frumpy, too tall, plain, boring, unattractive Beatrice is condemned by the author for not being remotely marriageable, to the point where a blind suitor commits suicide rather than accept her proposal. Seriously. If this was a TV series, not one of these women would pass the Bechdel Test, and I don't care what decade they are supposed to be living in - they are all defined by sex, whether they can get any, whether they enjoy it, and if they can score the ultimate goal of a Husband and a Family. Lid and Mr Rochester get their happy ending, natch, but poor Beatrice doesn't even merit a closing paragraph. What a stinking pile of Mills and Boon. ( )

Abandoned after 100 pages. A first for me. Boring Lydia swooning over a man she has just met for how many pages? All prolonged tell and very little show. Endless repetitions of mind-numbing feelings. ( )

Excellent read. Definitely a 4.5 (why is there still no way to grant half stars on Goodreads?!) This was the first historical fiction that I've read by Adele Parks but I've read plenty of her contemporary fiction and I like her style. I wasn't disappointed with this book and she continues to have a way of writing women and their relationships, dreams and lives, in a way I find witty, poignant and true. I actually liked each of the women portrayed in this book so that was new (I usually find there's always one I don't much like in Parks' books but I still find them terribly interesting to read about). I completely bought in to their individual desperation & how they each went about achieving their goals. Life following WWI was a bit grim if you were a woman looking for a male mate and it was clear in this story that many were. I won't spoil here but I will say that I didn't think I'd root for Bea as much as I did. She came off as a bit bitter to begin but then I'd feel for her because of her unfortunate looks, cankles and grim finances. She's worse off than Edith Crawley and it hurt to watch. Even though everyone else was suffering in their own way, I felt she'd suffered enough at the starting gate. so the added indignity of "maiden aunt" status was more than I wanted her to bear for too long.

I think this would be a great read for book club and should it come up in any of those I'm a member of, I'll be happy to read this again & look forward to the discussion. It's not a hard read but it can be engrossing so while it's not a chore to get through, you may experience aggravation at having to put it away during a commute or reading lunch. I don't consider books lengthy until they reach the 500 page mark but I do know some book club reads around the 450 (this one is around that) or so mark can be considered a bit long & too much of a commitment with a looming deadline. I still think this one is worth the read. ( )

The theme of WW1 women has been a favourite of mine when reading fiction and non fiction alike so this book appealed to me from the very beginning. I have read others by Adele Parks and enjoyed them and I was not let down by this book either.
The storyline may not have been the most original but the characters made up for this and I liked each one in different ways. I empathised with them all and loved the story being told by each one in different chapters. Thoroughly reccommend. ( )

The theme of WW1 women has been a favourite of mine when reading fiction and non fiction alike so this book appealed to me from the very beginning. I have read others by Adele Parks and enjoyed them and I was not let down by this book either.
The storyline may not have been the most original but the characters made up for this and I liked each one in different ways. I empathised with them all and loved the story being told by each one in different chapters. Thoroughly reccommend. ( )