Choosing what’s best for yourself.

Keaton has been told that her cheating ex (who was cheating with his ex-wife) and her boss (the ex-wife) are having a baby and the boss wants Keaton to take a promotion to help out on a higher-up level. Keaton decides she’s had enough. At the same time, her mother and uncle are looking to put their old family home on the market – finally, after many years of leaving it abandoned after their parents’ early deaths, they want to sell. So Keaton sets off to North Carolina to clear the heritage house she’s never been to and spend some time thinking about her next moves for her life. It won’t be simple, however – when she gets to Beaufort, NC, she falls in love with the house, the people, and her nextdoor neighbour is seriously hot. And she finds out something her mum does not know – many of the townspeople still talk about the sudden disappearance and presumed death of Rebecca and Townsend St James. The car crash that was rumoured may not be the real story.

A Happier Life is a dual timeline, dual narrative tale (with a brief third) of discovery in all its forms. It sees a bit of a change from Woodson Harvey’s recent work; one of the defining elements of 2022’s The Wedding Veil was a mystery and 2023’s The Summer Of Songbirds had a couple of things to iron out in this same vein, but A Happier Life is particularly high on it as to reach it as a genre categorisation. It also has a vastly different sort of ending that has proved controversial (more on that later). But in sum, this book does scratch any itch you might have to read more of the author’s work.

The basic features of a great Woodson Harvey novel are all here. (I do consider her to be an excellent writer.) You have the focus on characters and characterisation; the importance of family, never in any way overbearing, all very lovely and natural; and the wonderful North Carolina/Southern women’s fiction atmosphere that, in this Brit’s necessarily detached view, makes for a very homely and friendly setting.

Nevertheless that Keaton probably should have nipped her relationship with her co-worker-who-was-her-boss’s-husband in the bud, her journey of personal and familial discovery is lovely to read. Whilst she guards her heart very strongly for a while, the goodness she finds in the seaside town wins her over slowly as you know it will. She is the first narrator to be introduced, and arguably the main one.

Narrator two is Keaton’s unknown grandmother, Rebecca, who died long before Keaton was born. Her narrative is definitely more filler-in than completely fully-fledged, simply because we rely on her narrative to find out secrets, but she’s a good character also. (One of the defining aspects of Woodson Harvey’s novels and the reason starting one of her books feels so wonderful is that you know you’ll be greeted by a plethora of good people.)

To speak of the other main characters singularly would spoil the story; there’s only one further that is safe to discuss and that is Salt the dog who is modelled after Woodson Harvey’s own bundle of fur. Salt brings people together as all good boys do and is winsome – he is paramount to the plot.

(What I can say about people as a group is that Keaton’s friendships are lovely and Rebecca’s dinner parties are similarly good; Rebecca’s narrative is in part about menus and creating guest lists of compatible people, and food. Woodson Harvey includes a couple of recipes in the end pages of the book.)

Having chosen to set her novel in the town she lives in herself, Woodson Harvey’s use of location is, needless to say, on point.

There is a romance – it is sweet, well-written, extremely realistic as the author’s past novels have also been, and moves at a good pace. Woodson Harvey writes her romantic heroes very well.

The mystery itself unravels slowly – whilst it’s a focus it’s not the focus until the end; there is plenty of other story content here and you never feel it’s taking a while to get there (and truly the book spans a fairly short period of time in both narratives, anyway). And as the mystery concerns the ending I mentioned, let’s get to it. I’ll try my best to avoid spoiling it.

Given I’m writing this so late after publication and, indeed after my own reading of the novel, I might as well address the fact that some readers have been disappointed with the ending of A Happier Life due to the marketing and the cover (and, I expect, the author’s previous work being different). This book is indeed not really the beach read some expect. The conclusion of the mystery is a very bold choice, I feel, and whilst I understand the view of those who find it upsetting and not ‘right’, I personally see Woodson Harvey having used it in the star-crossed lovers sense, soul mates, and so on. Is it a surprise? Yes, it is, particularly given the choice Woodson Harvey makes as to where to end the book, but it does fit the point she was trying to make (succeeds in making, I would say) about the love between the two people.

So A Happier Life, then, is different. The title is shorter (it was initially titled The House On Sunset Lane, changed perhaps to give prospective readers pause). It doesn’t feature photos on its cover, instead a drawing. And the story, whilst still family and person and location and historically focused, is different in tone.

But it is, dare I say, objectively, a very decent read and a suitable progression of the author’s work.

Publisher: Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster)
Pages: 357
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-668-01219-2
First Published: 25th June 2024
Date Reviewed: 21st November 2024

Never underestimate the elderly.

Archie is waiting in the restaurant of Peter Jones department store for his ninety-something-year-old great aunts to arrive. But then he’s called into a manager’s office: Great Aunt Penny has stolen a figurine from the store and has been caught; Great Aunt Josephine is with her. But Penny’s just an old lady and probably has dementia, right? The store let her off. Archie has some exciting news (these ladies are all about ‘excitements’ be they lunch or a day out) – France has invited them both to accept the Legion d’Honneur for their bravery and service in the Second World War. They’ll go, of course they will. But perhaps Penny’s stealing isn’t a one off – perhaps she’s been stealing throughout her life. Woven around the present day narrative are stories from the sisters’ days in service. Penny working in the FANY and training as a spy, Josephine in the Wrens. And we get the story of Josephine when she came back from Scotland all those years ago, that time when their friend/servant, Connie, gave birth unmarried and in disgrace.

The Excitements, Chrissie Manby’s first novel under the name of C J Wray, is one half very fun romp and one half fascinating WWII detail. Told with a few themes in tow, the novel places a spotlight on a generation of people – I’d argue it does indeed make you take more notice of factual people, not ‘just’ Wray’s two fictional heroines – who are often deemed as being of lossy intelligence, and are undermined in general.

Penny and Josephine are fantastic characters, though I’ll go to bat in saying that Penny is the more awesome for her personality and how she works through bad situations. She does also get more time on the page. Penny’s stand out feature, that can happily be discussed with only a marginal amount of spoilers dropped – because you figure the situation out in chapter one – is her tendency towards thievery. Only jewellery and expensive figurines, mind you, and there is a solid reason behind it, but, to refer back to the last sentence of the previous paragraph, she gets away with it easily because, as her loyal great-nephew points out to the manager of Peter Jones – John Lewis’ flagship store in Sloane Square that has a firm role in this book – she’s starting to get dementia. Poor Archie – he means well and loves his aunts, but even he misses a very obvious trick sometimes.

Elsewhere in Penny’s narrative, or narratives plural, given Wray’s flashbacks to various decades, we see her valiant strides through the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. A girl of her social status and general education wouldn’t have been expected to know much at the start, but Penny’s almost literal kickarse situation involves having been somewhat of an autodidact of W E Fairbairn’s fighting manual which she uses most notably on a date.

In comparison, Josephine’s life has been quieter – she gets through the Women’s Royal Naval Service duties well, and without too much comment given that she does do well, but there’s a secret that haunts her that Wray teases out to reflect Josephine’s trauma. It’s fairly easy for the reader to work out just for the sheer amount of stories we’ve heard about the whole thing by now, but given Wray’s deft work in placing it in the narrative and emphasising it at times it makes sense to do so, it never becomes a case of waiting for the author to get to the point – you’re happy to let it flow naturally.

As to the writing and structure, as mentioned, it’s well thought out. Wray makes use of both the first and third person and includes diary entries and the odd letter. The movements back and forward in time and the way different periods (now; 1940s; 1960s) are dotted about never threaten your comprehension – it’s easy to keep up with what’s happening and the presumed mystery Wray wanted to employ in choosing the non-linear storytelling works.

Of language we’d better bring in the Morse code. Penny and Josephine sometimes use it to communicate and there is hilarity to be had in Archie’s effective broken Morse. The code is brought to the fore towards the end in a very funny way that involves other war-serving nonagenarians that Penny and Josephine aren’t keen on, and a situation of a more criminal kind.

In characterisations further than our intellectually-sound, thieving, kickarse heroines, Archie is a good supportive character. (I can’t quite call him a main character because there’s both a literal difference in age and a big gap in knowledge.) He has his own character progression which involves a jolly scene when he meets a past lover (the comedy grows as the book nears its end) and you get to see inside his head on occasion. Otherwise there is Penny and Josephine’s housekeeper (they don’t use the word ‘carer’) who has a wonderful progression in her own right, and the two other nonagenarians who show up half way through add to the humour – sometimes at their expense (one is always introducing any statement with ‘as an admiral’s daughter…’) and sometimes to outwit Penny and Josephine. And one of them has their own carer who plays a supplementary role.

The Excitements is such a fun book. The sisters’ wish to always have something to look forward to (an excitement) becomes more than they bargained for in a strangely good way and their constant drive for happiness and to always be ‘toujours gai’ (always cheery) becomes a motto within the narrative. If you want some humour with your WW2 fiction – I’d say this book counts as both historical and contemporary – you want this novel.

Publisher: Orion (Hachette)
Pages: 342
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-398-71183-9
First Published: 30th January 2024
Date Reviewed: 8th October 2024

Doing the time warp.

Our narrator is a ‘bridge’ – a civil servant working in a top secret government ministry whose role it is to live and guide a person who has been extracted from the past and brought into the 21st century. These historical figures are people who are taken from their own time period just before the moment of their death – this gets around any pesky paradoxical issues created by time travel. Our narrator’s ‘expat’ is a man some readers may be familiar with – Graham Gore was a factual Navy Officer who died during the failed Franklin expedition to the Arctic – and in this book, he is revived in fiction twice over, once as a written character (little is known about the real man) and again through the time travel. Graham and our narrator get on quite well and Graham adjusts to the 21st century very well. But our narrator is well aware that she knows little of what’s really going on – she’s in on the secret of the government agency but not the secret’s secret. And as the year goes on and she makes friends with other ‘successful’ expats, she also finds herself feeling more for Graham than she probably should.

The Ministry Of Time is Kaliane Bradley’s phenomenal debut novel and one of the very best books of the year. (Don’t just take my word for it – it’s on many people’s lists.) Blending the sci-fi and fantasy of time travel, with the very real but little-known person of Graham Gore, adding some brilliant moments of comedy, and with some absolutely wonderful writing that manages to be literary and sparse and yet completely accessible, this is a very unique book that provides hours of absolute enjoyment and many moments of poignancy.

As the writing is the first thing this reviewer noted, it’s where we’ll start. When I say it’s literary but accessible I really mean it – Bradley doesn’t use all that much description. The Ministry Of Time is incredibly paired down in words enough that there’s a fair amount of white space within the stack of pages to the point that if it wasn’t for the slight distance you feel due to the way the first person/second person (at one point near the end) is written, you’d tear through this book at a rate of knots. Perhaps that’s the point – in creating a tale in sparse language, Bradley forces you to slow down and savour everything you’re reading, more so really think about what you’re reading. It’s the kind of book that you look forward to picking up every day but are sated enough each reading session to be happy to put it down. It is an incredible reading experience.

Yet none of this means the book lacks description – if I had to choose some words to describe this book I would pick ‘autumnal’ and that is because there are scenes set in autumn that are very immersive. Location, season, and, perhaps naturally, the progression of time, are all things Bradley, via the narrator, spends time on, with the role of ‘bridge’ being about a year long and time perhaps gaining new meaning with its manipulation having been achieved.

The characters are well created and developed – within the sparse framework there is still space to bring fully to life this unlikely band of people. The government agency, the other bridges (I think it’s safe to say that our narrator is fully realised!), the ‘expat’ time travellers. In fact, the sparse prose is very much in Graham Gore’s favour here, with his no-nonsense but caring personality and the way he responds to the many changes our narrator goes through. Their story is wonderfully written. And while the real Graham Gore may not have consented to being the hero of a love story – who knows? – it’s fair to say the representation by Bradley is considered, measured, and respectful. The narrator can be cagey, almost, sometimes, but more often she leaves things to subtext, such as her growing attraction to the man, which she shows in moments, for example, when she says that since living with Graham, her hemlines have lengthened.

The humour arrives with no warning – I think even if, unlike me, you know going in that it is an element of the book (well, you surely do now!), it will still be a surprise how and when it turns up. It’s a type of humour I can’t quite put a name to – not really laugh-out-loud or ‘typical’ British humour – but on occasion hilarious all the same whilst being mainly very… well, I’m going use the word ‘measured’ for a second time in this review. It’s obvious that a lot of work has gone into this book.

A change of tone in the second half brings poignancy, your guesses as to where the book will go perhaps mistaken. This is not to say the book becomes upsetting – it doesn’t – but the humour is dulled a little and a certain urgency and seriousness is slotted beside it.

There are a few keys threads in the novel that need mentioning. First is the look at race and multiculturalism and diversity and passing as white. The narrator, much like Bradley, is half-Cambodian, and she comments on the way people treat her and her family. In a great use of comparison, she speaks of Graham’s saying he can’t go ‘back’ – to the freezing Arctic that without the time travel intervention would’ve killed him – and how she’s always been asked by others if she’s been back to Cambodia, that place her mother had no choice but to leave. And there is a moment towards the end of Graham’s own chapters where different peoples are conflated.

(Graham’s chapters, about his last days in the Arctic, are quite a change from the rest of the narrative, and it takes a while to work out what they are for, exactly, but it’s nice to read Bradley’s nod to the real history. The hardback end papers are of his artwork. His daguerrotype picture, the only one we have, is included at the end.)

Maybe I was tired of stories, telling them and hearing them. I thought the dream was to be post-: post-modern, post-captain, post-racial. Everyone wanted me to talk about Cambodia and I had nothing to teach them about Cambodia. If you learn something about Cambodia from this account, that’s on you. […]

When I first joined the Ministry and they’d pressed me through HR, a woman ran her finger down the column with my family history. ‘What was it like growing up with that?’ she asked. She meant it all: Pol Pot Noodle jokes on first dates, my aunt’s crying jags, a stupa with no ashes, Gary Glitter, Agent Orange, we loved Angkor Wat, regime change, not knowing where the bodies were, Princess Diana, landmines, the passport in my mother’s drawer, my mother’s nightmares, fucking chink, you don’t look it, dragon ladies, fucking paki, Tuol Sleng was a school, Saloth Sar was a teacher, my grandfather’s medals, the firing squad, my uncle’s trembling hands, it’s on my bucket list, Brother Number One, I’ve got a thing for Latinas, the killing fields, The Killing Fields (1984), Angelina Jolie, do you mean Cameroonian? Do you mean Vietnamese? Will you say your name again for me?

I considered.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘What was it like growing up without it?’

— Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry Of Time, page 182.

Next, history and progress – two subjects stuck together here as a theme.

I didn’t understand that my value system – my great inheritance – was a system, rather than a far point on a neutral, empirical line that represented progress. Things were easier for me than for my mother […] Was this not progress?

— Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry Of Time, page 117.

That history and progress are here and are together is not surprising – many paragraphs deal with a historical figure learning how to do such things as use a kettle or a washing machine, and the narrator is forced to think this way when living with him and also when considering the ministry. This feeds into the threads on climate change – 30 degrees centigrade is a cool day all things considered.

Lastly, there is some interesting intertextuality here with the 1939 novel by Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male. Graham rather likes it. A thriller set in London and dealing with London and dictators and secret police and gunshots, while I haven’t read it myself to comment on it fully, there seems enough commonality between Rogue Male and The Ministry Of Time that readers of the older work will enjoy the mentions in the newer. (I think there may be plot elements that are more similar than the Wikipedia article on Household’s novel makes out.)

The Ministry Of Time is a feat. It’s utterly unique in its writing and very different to other time travel stories, including time travel romances. This review hasn’t done it justice, and trust me, I’ve tried – if you haven’t read it yet then look out because your ‘best of 2024’ list is about to have a new entry at the 11th hour.

Publisher: Sceptre (Hachette)
Pages: 343
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-399-72634-4
First Published: 7th May 2024
Date Reviewed: 2nd October 2024

The ultimate unreliable narrator.

Twelve year old Edith lives permanently in her father’s theatre, the only theatre remaining in Edwardian Norwich. She cannot leave for the curse put upon her when she was a baby ruled that if she were ever to leave, the theatre would fall down. Then the person who put the curse on her exploded. (It did happen in a theatre after all.) Now Edith’s got a play of her own in mind that she wants her theatrical staff-family to put on: never having left the theatre, Edith’s done a monumental amount of reading, has learned all there is to know about Norwich (she probably knows more than residents who may traverse it freely) and has learned that a large number of children have gone missing over the years and the culprit is a nasty old woman called Mawther Meg. As her father’s doppelganger understudy confuses her, Mr Measly keeps trying to get her to hug him, her father’s four dead wives’ clothes remain in his rooms, Aunt Bleachy calls her bucket and talks lovingly about her Mop, and father’s new fiancé tries to lure Edith out down the steps of the main entrance (she’s the heiress to the Beetle Spread factory, made of exactly that ingredient) Edith attempts to outwit them all, stay away, and write the truth about what happened to the children.

Edward Carey’s Edith Holler is a bonkers and often confusing book about a young girl’s struggle to be noticed in a way that is full of respect and care, to be listened to. It’s a phenomenal piece of literature and art (Carey’s drawings are included) and is a delight to read. To quote the oft-mentioned-by-Edith Hamlet, ‘To be or not to be’ is precisely the question. Who, what, and, sometimes, where, is Edith? You’ll change your mind very often while reading this book.

On the one hand you have, as stated, an unreliable narrator – it can get incredibly frustrating being in Edith’s head, you’re stuck to her narrative like she’s stuck to her theatre – and on the other hand you have something incredibly true. Confusing? Yes, it is. The thing with Edith Holler – referring to the entire book here rather than the character, though the book and character may be one and the same, who knows? – is that it is wholly theatrical. Edith’s narrative is like a monologue – it is a monologue, just one by a child so, unlike your usual monologue plays, it goes on a bit due to lack of maturity and lack of editing. She does ramble so. (Potentially necessary note: the book as a product of Edward Carey, author, is edited.)

Having written the bracketed sentence it makes sense to now mention the ‘reason’ for this book. This reviewer’s jury is undecided. Possibilities range from mental illness (and across the road is a mental hospital), to child abuse, to a play within a play or play in a book entirely, to puppetry and animation. Where you are indeed with Edith throughout, I think it’s fair to say you may never reach a complete conclusion, but isn’t that just the way with pieces of theatre (and literature) sometimes?

Carey’s theatrical concepts – we should maybe say ‘Edith’s concepts’ because if Edith were told she was a creation of an author originally from Norwich she’ll either self-destruct in fear or depression (that might be appropriate) or, likely as she is with Karl Baedeker the famous guidebook author, become rather obsessed – are both purely his own and taken from various plays. There’s blood and death everywhere, very often, a bit like Shakespeare; there’s children’s toys and dolls and we might be in a doll’s house, like a meta reference to Ibsen. Dolls house – add that to the list of possible ‘reasons’.

On toys, we need mention Carey’s drawings. Carey has included drawings in all of his works and they are always intriguing but I think it’s apt to say they’ve taken on a particularly important role here – pun definitely intended. (Add a child playing with her toys to the list of possibilities.) The drawings present a very strong case for a particular meaning and reason for the whole book, for Edith and everyone else. So too does the fact that, if you visit Carey’s website, you’ll find a printable card theatre with a range of characters included.

I’ll include a single other character of note, though there are more – Edith’s father’s fiancé, whose introduction in the book ushers in a new era and many new questions for the reader. Or are we, perhaps, members of the audience as well?

I’m starting to sound like Edith, I fear, so here’s a related yet different topic: Carey’s necessarily limited portrayal of Norwich is appealing. It is in fact due to the limitations Edith’s life sets on the text that perhaps makes it stand out all the more – there’s a lot of very specific street-to-street facts here, a bit like the guidebook Edith loves (oh this is all getting too meta!) that allow you to know a nice amount of information about this city in its Edwardian form. Norwich too is part and parcel of this text – there are again many inspirations, and literary metaphors abound.

Edith Holler, then – again the book, not the girl, though the girl is probably stomping her feet at me for the twice-now dismissal of her person – is quite the literary feat. The literary (genre) elements, the intertextuality, the use of and grounding in its location, and of course the overriding theatricality and artistic nature of it are superb. Best read alongside reader-led research into the various parts (especially if you do not know Norwich – the nearest this reviewer has been is Lowestoft and that as a child) unless you are well informed already. It’s a great experience.

I was sent this book in order to interview the author.

Publisher: Gallic Books (Belgravia)
Pages: 390
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-913-54778-3
First Published: 31st October 2023
Date Reviewed: 30th August 2024

Because women can write and sell books, too.

In the US, Jacqueline Susann is looking to be on the bestseller list with her debut novel, the forthcoming Valley Of The Dolls. Early on she gets breast cancer and makes a pact with God to give her ten more years in which to make enough money so that her autistic son is taken care of for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, in the UK, Jackie Collins is concerned with the breakdown of her marriage to a very mentally ill man and putting food on the table – she wants to start writing. And back state-side, Nancy moves to New York to pursue her dream of becoming an editor. All three women must learn to work with and subvert the stereotypes and sexism they come across to be the successes they know they can be.

Scandalous Women is Paul’s latest novel, about Jacqueline Susann and Jackie Collins (and also the purely fictional Nancy), is a story of strength, women’s agency, and, arguably, the literary industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Told in the third person via the three women quoted, Paul is able to deliver a lot of information alongside her fictionalisation of a momentous change for women authors, including the period’s steps in the struggle for women to be accepted as equals.

Paul has an uncanny talent for creating not just an interesting story but diving under the surface and serving up information in a way that makes you speed through the book at a rate of knots in order to devour it. She is here, as always, able to present a story in biographical fiction form where you know that you can rest assured that if whatever you’re reading in any given moment is not true, it’s either not too far from the truth or a real possibility that could have been.

There is some great and subtle intertextuality here as well as whatever the term is (or would be, if there isn’t one) for an effective inter-biography-textuality. Paul’s Jacqueline, in particular (Jackie has her moments, too) makes a point of telling various people, generally interviewers or her fellows in the publishing industry, about – when criticised for not being literary – how she concentrates on storytelling and how fiction for women that looks at sex is absolutely fine. (She’s selling bestsellers by the thousands, constantly, after all – Google says it’s at 40 million now). Paul’s prose fits this perfectly – her usual straight-forward and very welcome style seems here to be fine-tuned to her subjects; this book is particularly accessible, meaning that you can focus on the plot and themes and there is never any need to re-read what you’ve read in order to understand it. This accessibility is a big part of why the thematic sections of the book, where they pertain to publishing industry concepts and history, are so fascinating; it’s like the success of the advertising aspects of Paul’s previous book, A Beautiful Rival, only with further concentration and exploration applied.

Paul has brought the real people to life; Jacqueline and Jackie are here completely and understandably, but their husbands – lesser-known if Wikipedia is correct – and others burst from the page as well. They feel true to life – Jacqueline’s mix of business and kindness can be seen in various interviews, for example. She’s rather inspiring – she’ll make sure you know how much she’s sold but she’ll also remember things about you she can ask about later to show that she gives a damn, and while that may help her gain admiration it also very much does come as a kindness too. (Yes, I have been rather taken by the interviews I’ve watched¹.)

A paragraph break must be made here to discuss the meetings between Jacqueline and Jackie. There is no solid evidence that this happened but in true Gill Paul style, a conclusion has been reached after assessing the probabilities (in this case that they attended many of the same events) and the fiction spun from there. There’s a very caring conversational thread towards the end that really shows off the reasoning Paul has applied to her choice to have the two know each other.

Back to characterisation, and the fictional people are just as great as the factual. Their development is strong, with a particular note needing to be made for the most important fictional character, Nancy. It’s fair to say that you may just find Nancy to be your favourite; perhaps due to the fiction and the relative lack of limitations Paul had when creating her (she did still have to be woven around the reality) there is just that little bit more development, and of course Nancy is where the publishing industry itself comes alive.

You may wish sometimes that it hadn’t come alive. One of the focuses of Scandalous Women is the misogyny of the publishing industry of the time – the sheer number of men versus women, the side-lining of women, and the sexism, which is shown both in dialogue and in actions. (As an example, Nancy must slide down a fireman’s pole in her skirt in order to get one of her jobs, and yes, that is based on fact.) Nancy has a tough time convincing her boss and everyone else to give women’s writing a chance, even when those same writings are doing fantastically across the pond. And Jacqueline and Jackie, despite being bestsellers, have their own snarky remarks and harassment to deal with. They’ve more agency to respond with due to their relative standing compared to Nancy but it still reads as ridiculous, and, sadly, very real. And on other topics it’s not a spoiler to note, Paul includes Jacqueline’s religious belief, struggles with cancer, and motherhood, carefully and with full respect to the real woman.

If there is anything wanting, this reviewer wished there was just that bit more narrative, for the fictional Nancy to be given more time – her fascinating career in motion and her story, albeit tied up well at the end, was ever intriguing, and that is entirely down to the storytelling.

Scandalous Women is, then, a fantastic look at two of the women who were the defining people of a defining moment in the publishing industry. Full of information and period detail as well as a solid page-turner factor, it’ll entice you, make you want to know more and, if you haven’t read them already, you’re going to finish it wanting to go and pick up those novels that were oh so indecent.

I was given my copy of this book by the author.

Publisher: Avon (HarperCollins)
Pages: 365
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-008-53216-1
First Published: 13th August 2024
Date Reviewed: 9th September 2024

Footnotes

¹ One such interview is Susann’s interview on Good Afternoon in 1973