A Memory of Violets, by Hazel Gaynor. HarperCollins 2015

In 1912, Tilly Harper leaves home to become a house mother in a home for former flower and watercress selling girls; the lucky occupants now work in a factory making artificial flowers, which were immensely popular at the time. Both belong to philanthropist Alfred Shaw, who rescues as many of the girls- the poorest of the poor, many of them with physical problems that prevent them from getting better employment- from the streets. When Tilly is putting her things away, she discovers a box with an old journal stored in it, and she reads it over the days as she has time. It’s the story of Florrie Flynn and the younger sister, Rosie, who she lost when Rosie was four years old. Florrie spent her entire short life living and working in the group home, and never gave up looking for her sister. This poignant tale inspires Tilly to try and find Rosie herself, and let her know how much her sister loved her.

It’s a sweet story, and paints a good picture of the lives of the flower girls and poverty in the late Victorian and Edwardian era in London. The flower factory and group homes are based on real ones established by John Groom. Tilly is a nice character with enough of a personal conflict to make her interesting. There is a love interest, but it really doesn’t add much to the story. There are also some amazing coincidences, but they are worked in well enough to be believable. Good story for a rainy or snowy afternoon.

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The New Countess, by Faye Weldon. St. Martin’s Press, 2013

This is the final volume in Weldon’s trilogy set in the Edwardian era and featuring the wealthy Dilberne family. In this go round, the King invites himself – along with hiss wife, Queen Alexandra AND his mistress, Alice Keppel- to a shooting weekend at the Dilberne’s country house, which creates a panic in Lady Isobel. The country house is run down; the King – and his mistress- will be expecting flush toilets, electric lights and heaters, and up to the minute décor. This causes a hemorrhage of cash and a strain on the marriage. Meanwhile, their son Arthur is having problems with his American heiress wife, Minnie- he’s more interested in automobiles than in sex. Arthur’s socialistic sister has returned from Australia a well to do widow, and is living with a bohemian brother and sister duo and preparing to publish a book on the sex habits of the Australian aborigines, which horrifies her family. It’s all high-strung soap opera in a historical setting.

Although supposed to be along the lines of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’, showing the lives of both the high class and the servants, only the first volume really featured the downstairs. They do appear momentarily in this volume, but are not fully formed characters.

I didn’t care for this volume as much as I did the first two in the trilogy. I liked Lady Isobel in the first two books; not so much this go-round, nor did I care much for Robert this time. The characters seemed harsh, mean spirited, and self centered. There is a rather bizarre little coda at the end, like a speculation in the first person while the rest of the book is told in the third person. And, sadly, the title gives away the event that I suspect was supposed to be a shock.

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Long Live the King, by Fay Weldon. St. Martin’s Press, 2013

The year is 1901, King Edward VII is soon to have his official coronation, and the Dilberne family is in a kerfuffle. Arthur Dilberne is good friend of the King and so caught up in preparations for the coronation, as is his wife, Lady Isobel. Their daughter in law Minnie is pregnant, ready to do her duty by providing an heir, and daughter Rosina is still being a political agitator. Meanwhile, sixteen year old, suddenly orphaned Adela, niece to Lord Dilberne, tired of having her fate arranged by others, takes her life into her own hands and goes on an adventure. And three invitations to the coronation have become an object of much contention and confusion.

This trilogy (which began with last years Habits of the House) is sort of like Seinfeld: the show about nothing. Very little seems to take place, but everybody is practicing their own little schemes and things that seem small take on great importance. Nobody is really a villain; nobody is really a hero. They are just people- wealthy people, for the most part but not all- being people at a time when great changes were taking place. But the books are written so well that I can’t put them down, and I eagerly await the third book. 

 

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Park Lane, by Francis Osborne. Vintage Books, 2012

This book follows two women who live in a mansion on Park Lane: Bea, the single, recently jilted, daughter who still lives at home, and Grace, working as a housemaid despite her secretarial training because her lower class, northern accent bars her from London office work. Both Grace and Bea have secrets; Grace has told her family that she’s doing respectable office work rather than being a maid; Bea is joining her aunt as a follower of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, while Bea’s mother has long supported the non-violent suffragists. Bea and Grace are at the opposite ends of the social hierarchy in the house- and personality. Bea is an excitement junkie; loving fast cars and motorcycles, the thrilling fear at the suffragette rallies, fast ambulance driving practically on the front, and meeting a man who is ‘not of her class’. Grace seeks safety and worries constantly about not living up to family expectations.

Divided into years, the story covers 1914 to 1923 (with a gap between 1918 and 1923). This is a tumultuous age in England; WW I, socialism and the women’s suffrage movement all changed the lives of rich and poor alike. There is violence at the suffragette rallies, incredible loss of life in the trenches of WW I, post traumatic stress for both men and women (who drive ambulances in the war zones and nurse the torn up men), class differences come to mean a *little* less, and women gain more freedom well before they get the vote.

I enjoyed the book- I find the era fascinating (while a fan of Downton, I first was introduced to the era when PBS ran ‘The Forsyte Saga’ way back around 1970) and Osborne knows the time intimately- she had to, to write the brilliant biography ‘The Bolter’- and she has a great power of description. But I feel the book could have been better. Bea comes off as rather hard and it’s difficult to sympathize with her. Grace likable enough, but passages about things she goes through that should make us terrified for her are a bit flat. One character who connects the two women, Grace’s brother Michael, seems like he was created only to connect them- he’s introduced as a socialist, a budding writer, but he doesn’t really do anything with it. A subplot about sneaking books out of the house to him starts out extremely tense but is allowed to peter out to nothing. Because of these faults, I’m afraid I can only give the book four stars. But remember that this is Osborne’s first fiction book- when that’s taken into consideration, it’s pretty great.