I don't know about anyone else but my love of historical fiction goes up and down, and when it's down it's normally because I am bored, finding too many similar themes and places, and not much originality in the books I'm reading. Recently I was *gifted a copy of The Teashop Girls a new novel from Elaine Everest, and things are looking up.
I was skeptical before I started reading, expecting something along similar lines to Elaine's Woolworths Girls series, just in a tearoom, not a shop. Although there was a touch of familiarity about it, there was also quite a collection of interesting characters that really made this story stand out.
It's always the quiet ones you have to watch, and Mr Cardew is quite possibly the quietest of them all. He is barely mentioned in the novel, let alone suspected for the secrets he hides, so for me, it's a bombshell moment when those are revealed.
It's an unexpected piece of writing, in a time when we are well used to being able to predict what comes next, or at least read speculation from characters in the story. This is a novel with more interesting characters than I expected, and more action too.
Mr. Cardew, before his fall from grace, was a resident of Seaview Guest House, a place many of the interesting characters, such as Polish-born Anya, and fisherwoman Mildred calls home. It's run by Flora with help from her daughter Rosie and provides a comforting backdrop to the action.
The Lyon's teashops where Rosie and her friends worked was another key focus of the plot, although I think this was the only slight downfall in an otherwise excellent novel. I wanted to feel immersed in the world of Lyon's teashops, just as I did with Woolworth's in Elaine's other novels, but it just didn't happen for me.
Apart from that, I was fully engaged with the plot with no temptation to skip pages, and enjoyed the amount of action in every chapter. There are no page fillers here, just a....?
a somewhat aspirational love interest, so if you revelled in the movie star boyfriend in The Butlins Girls, then look out for Captain Hargreaves.
The Teashop Girls is out now, published by Pan Macmillan. Many Thanks to the publishers, Elaine Everest, and ed pr for the opportunity to review this novel, it's been a great read. Apologies also for the delay getting this up, I got swallowed up into an all-consuming freelancing black hole, but I'd rather read and devour every page, and put up the review how I want it to be. Find out more about the Pan Macmillan roster here.
I was skeptical before I started reading, expecting something along similar lines to Elaine's Woolworths Girls series, just in a tearoom, not a shop. Although there was a touch of familiarity about it, there was also quite a collection of interesting characters that really made this story stand out.
It's an unexpected piece of writing, in a time when we are well used to being able to predict what comes next, or at least read speculation from characters in the story. This is a novel with more interesting characters than I expected, and more action too.
Mr. Cardew, before his fall from grace, was a resident of Seaview Guest House, a place many of the interesting characters, such as Polish-born Anya, and fisherwoman Mildred calls home. It's run by Flora with help from her daughter Rosie and provides a comforting backdrop to the action.
The Lyon's teashops where Rosie and her friends worked was another key focus of the plot, although I think this was the only slight downfall in an otherwise excellent novel. I wanted to feel immersed in the world of Lyon's teashops, just as I did with Woolworth's in Elaine's other novels, but it just didn't happen for me.
Apart from that, I was fully engaged with the plot with no temptation to skip pages, and enjoyed the amount of action in every chapter. There are no page fillers here, just a....?
a somewhat aspirational love interest, so if you revelled in the movie star boyfriend in The Butlins Girls, then look out for Captain Hargreaves.
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The Teashop Girls is out now, published by Pan Macmillan. Many Thanks to the publishers, Elaine Everest, and ed pr for the opportunity to review this novel, it's been a great read. Apologies also for the delay getting this up, I got swallowed up into an all-consuming freelancing black hole, but I'd rather read and devour every page, and put up the review how I want it to be. Find out more about the Pan Macmillan roster here.
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