Natalie
Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen
Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London,
a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a
fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls.
Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has
persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the
general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is
changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury
Books, the girls in the shop have plans:
Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiancé was killed in action during
World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of
grievances--most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec
McDonough, the Head of Fiction.
Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she's been working to support the family
following her husband's breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between
duty to her family and dreams of her own.
Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to
earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less
accomplished male rival. Now she's working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans
to remake her own future.
As they interact with various literary figures of the time--Daphne Du Maurier,
Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy
Guggenheim, and others--these three women with their complex web of
relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is
richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow.
Narrated
by esteemed stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson, enjoy the full
unabridged edition of Bloomsbury Girls. “Stevenson delivers the
satisfying triumph at the end with perfect polish.” —AudioFile Magazine
I thoroughly enjoyed Natalie Jenner’s first book, The Jane Austen Society, which was a fictionalised account of the setting up of the society, which secured Chawton cottage, now the Jane Austen House Museum. One of the characters from that novel, Miss Evie Stone, has progressed from Chawton, through Cambridge, as one of the first women to receive a degree. Evie is talented, intelligent, and a hard worker, but she isn’t part of the inner circle, the old boys network, or even merely male, and these things work against her. She ends up missing out on a research position and through the recommendation of another of the Jane Austen Society, finds herself attending a job interview at Bloomsbury Books in London.
The bookshop is home to six other members of staff, the senior members of staff all being male, regardless of talent. This doesn’t matter to Grace, an oddity in being a working wife, her husband being medically unable to work due to his mental state following the second world war, but Vivien is talented, energetic and ambitious, and it grates so hard on her that she is sidelined purely for her gender:
'Women such as Vivien and Grace had hoped for a fresh beginning for everyone; but five years on, new opportunities for women were still being rationed along with the food. Those in power would always hold on to any excess supply, even to the bitter end.'
The women of Bloomsbury Books have differences, but there is one thing that they have in common. All of them are being held in place by men – Evie has missed out on academic opportunities, Vivien is held back in her job, and in her writerly aspirations and Grace constrained by her husband’s controlling ways and society’s rules. A temporary reorganisation in work means that Vivien has more power. And she is going to use that to her advantage, while staying strictly in line with the 51 rules of Bloomsbury Books.
Aside from earning a crust, Evie has another motive in working for Bloomsbury Books. She is looking for a lost novel by a female author:
“I thought you were a scholar of obscure eighteenth-century women writers.”
Evie stared at him. “They’re not obscure. They’re neglected.”
“Sorry.” He smiled. “Obscure sounds deficient. I am corrected.”
One thing I really enjoyed was the building of characters and relationships in this novel. The women are the main characters and they are all sketched out so well. Despite Evie being the character already known from The Jane Austen Society, the other female characters were drawn more vividly for me. I particularly felt for poor Grace, the secretary at the shop, whose private life was so drudgingly sad – a women who married and had children and then realised that the person she had married was not who she had thought. Who was unhappy in her existence as a wife but happy as a mother, and whose husband cast a shadow over her life that she couldn’t escape from. These days divorce can be a financial hardship and affect the children but I would think the societal stigma is minimal, rather than crushing and practically unthinkable as it would have been back in the late 1940s/early 1950s.
Vivien was an interesting character too, very modern in outlook but with a melancholy backstory of loss and class difference. It made me feel aggrieved that women and their contributions have been for so long overlooked.
Although the main characters are undoubtedly the females, we also get to know the male employees of the shop to an extent, and the shop’s owner. There is a very strong feminist streak running through this book. You get the feeling reading this novel that we are on the cusp of change, but knowing how slow change actually is, I found it hard to buy in to some of the events and timescales in the novel, particularly at the end of the story. I enjoyed it but I didn’t really believe it.
There are characters from real life added into the fiction too, such as authors Daphne du Maurier and Samuel Beckett and people from their social circle which was a fun touch.
I found the story extremely readable. Although in some ways the story is slow in building there are many mini interests along the way. There is one particular point in the story where I just HAD to see what was going to happen next even though it was at a tangent to the main plot. It’s lucky nobody tried to take it from me!
I
would recommend Bloomsbury Girls to people who enjoy mid 20th
century stories, stories about friendship and working together to overcome the odds and a big dash of feminism. I would rate it as a 4 star read.
Dear readers, I am immensely grateful for the outpouring of affection that so many of you have expressed for my debut novel The Jane Austen Society and its eight main characters. When I wrote its epilogue (in one go and without ever changing a word), I wanted to give each of Adam, Mimi, Dr. Gray, Adeline, Yardley, Frances, Evie and Andrew the happy Austenesque ending they each deserved. But I could not let go of servant girl Evie Stone, the youngest and only character inspired by real life (my mother, who had to leave school at age fourteen, and my daughter, who does eighteenth-century research for a university professor and his team). Bloomsbury Girls continues Evie’s adventures into a 1950s London bookshop where there is a battle of the sexes raging between the male managers and the female staff, who decide to pull together their smarts, connections, and limited resources to take over the shop and make it their own. There are dozens of new characters in Bloomsbury Girls from several different countries, and audiobook narration was going to require a female voice of the highest training and caliber. When I learned that British stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson, CBE, had agreed to narrate, I knew that my story could not be in better hands, and I so hope you enjoy reading or listening to it. Warmest regards, Natalie
AUTHOR BIO
Natalie Jenner is the author of the instant
international bestseller The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury
Girls. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction and
finalist for best debut novel, The Jane Austen Society was a USA
Today and #1 national bestseller and has been sold for translation in
twenty countries. Born in England and raised in Canada, Natalie has been a
corporate lawyer, career coach and, most recently, an independent bookstore
owner in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue
dogs. Visit her website to learn more.
WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | GOODREADS
PURCHASE LINKS
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& NOBLE | BOOK
DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB
AMAZON | BARNES
& NOBLE | BOOK
DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS
I am so excited that this book is already available in audio. I have listened to some of it, and as usual, Juliet Stevenson is a wonderful narrator
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Loved getting your thoughts on it. Grace was the one out of the three women who really pulled at my feelings, too.
ReplyDeleteI felt so hard for Grace! The others were trapped by society to an extent but they wouldn't have had the misery of feeling it every single day like she would have.
DeleteLooking forward to this book.
ReplyDeleteIt's a really good read. Hope you enjoy it when you read it.
DeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts, Ceri. I always appreciate your thorough and thoughtful reviews. I also enjoyed being in a London bookshop with the three main characters. Jenner did a fabulous job creating life in a bookshop with an engaging cast of characters. I am looking forward to her next novel.
ReplyDeleteBoth of Natalie Jenner's books really drew me in. Any future novels by her will be on my to be read list for sure :)
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