Review & Giveaway - - Coronation Year

Coronation Year: A Novel

by Jennifer Robson

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: April 4, 2023

Reviewed by Hellie

It is Coronation Year, 1953, and a new queen is about to be crowned. The people of London are in a mood to celebrate, none more so than the residents of the Blue Lion hotel.

Edie Howard, owner and operator of the floundering Blue Lion, has found the miracle she needs: on Coronation Day, Queen Elizabeth in her gold coach will pass by the hotel’s front door, allowing Edie to charge a fortune for rooms and, barring disaster, save her beloved home from financial ruin. Edie’s luck might just be turning, all thanks to a young queen about her own age. 

Stella Donati, a young Italian photographer and Holocaust survivor, has come to live at the Blue Lion while she takes up a coveted position at Picture Weekly magazine. London in celebration mode feels like a different world to her. As she learns the ins and outs of her new profession, Stella discovers a purpose and direction that honor her past and bring hope for her future.

James Geddes, a war hero and gifted artist, has struggled to make his mark in a world that disdains his Indian ancestry. At the Blue Lion, though, he is made to feel welcome and worthy. Yet even as his friendship with Edie deepens, he begins to suspect that something is badly amiss at his new home.

When anonymous threats focused on Coronation Day, the Blue Lion, and even the queen herself disrupt their mood of happy optimism, Edie and her friends must race to uncover the truth, save their home, and expose those who seek to erase the joy and promise of Coronation Year.

Hellie’s Heeds

I am an unapologetic Anglophile who reads historical novels like a child eats bon-bons. I’m sure it’s no surprise to those who know this about me that I feel this book was a 5 star-Top Dish because a lot of things would have had to happen for the book to get lesser marks. However, I have read other books by Jennifer Robson (The Gown, Goodnight from London, After the War is Over) and the writing style and historical detail, as it has been all the times before, is just lovely. 

What makes this story particularly delectable for me is the setting: post-war London (WWII specifically) and I was fascinated by the level of detail regarding rations, post-war “scrimping by” anecdotes, and allusions to Queen Elizabeth (yes, yes, I do love The Crown). I also delighted in encountering characters I had discovered before–Miriam from The Gown, Kaz and Ruby from Goodnight from London. I realized I had missed reading one of Jennifer’s books that took place in Italy (as I said, Anglophile) and undoubtedly tied to one of the other characters in this book. So yes, while I do have my particular setting preferences and historical favorites, Jennifer Robson gives such careful attention no matter when she places her story, creating authentic detail, believable characters, and such high stakes that the reader can’t help but care for the outcome of these people. (And they do feel like people–people your grandparents would introduce you to.) 

Jamie Geddes–the in-resident artist who is staying at the hotel in order to paint Coronation Day for a client–is so swoonworthy. Edie, the hotel-owner who fears (just a little) life is passing her by, is so relatable and perfect for Jamie. Just a picture perfect romance. You ever read a book and you can see it on the screen? This is one of those stories. In fact, I’d like to know when Masterpiece Theatre is going to take these related books and create a television series based off them? Something is going to have to replace Call the Midwife eventually–and I think these books would be perfect. 

If you’ve already binged The Crown and still want more–or want more of the young Queen–go find this. She may be a small part of the book, but she’s still memorable. Long live, Jennifer Robson.

~~~~~~~

Thanks for that wonderful review, Hellie. You make me want to one-click Coronation Year immediately and move everything on my reading list behind it.

Readers, have you read any books by Jennifer Robson?

Are you as fascinated with British history as Hellie?

What book(s) would you like to see made into a movie/television series?

One randomly chosen person who posts a comment before 11:00 PM, April 6 will receive a print copy of Coronation Year.

*U.S. only

*Must be 18

Review - - The Gown

THE GOWN

by Jennifer Robson

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: December 31, 2018

Reviewed by Hellie

As you may know, PJ offers her reviewers their pick of books she is sent, and I’m so glad she allowed me my pick of this one. THE GOWN is set in post-WWII London, focused around the seamstresses who helped create Queen Elizabeth’s wedding gown. I am a mad Royals fan--and I don’t mean the baseball team. I. WAS. LIT. In anticipation.

Dear Reader, it was even better than I hoped for. I want to double the stars available. When I say I found the book to be Top Dish, I mean, I would gladly come to your house with my copy and just start reading it to you, all the while ruining everything by stopping and going, “OMG, you’re going to LOVE this bit” before hopelessly taking the discovery out of it for you. You’re welcome.

When I thought about what I would write about the story, to explain why I thought this book was so special, I could only think: it made me cry. Generally speaking though, I don’t typically recommend books that make me cry. I generally recommend those books be tossed in the trash immediately. So I pondered it a bit--and it wasn’t so much as I was sad (though I was), but that I truly felt these people were real. I was so invested in the story that I honestly kept forgetting these characters were fiction. And I think there is no better compliment you can make to an author than that: I forgot I was reading a story, but was hearing a story from friends I loved and cared about. That some of the tears I was crying were for the fact the story was ending and I would know no more about these lovely people.

The story is told in three POVs, in two time periods: Ann (an embroiderer for Norman Hartnell, dressmaker for the Queen); Miriam (a French Jewish emigree who also works for Hartnell); and Heather (Ann’s granddaughter.) After Ann dies, Heather receives some of her grandmother’s things, which starts her on the path of solving the mystery of her Nan’s former life in England, her grandfather, and why Nan never spoke of her past. What she discovers is that her plain, ordinary grandmother who never so much as sewed buttons on clothing was an embroiderer who once worked for Hartnell’s and had even helped create the gown for Queen Elizabeth’s wedding. Heather is confused and hurt by the lack of information Nan shared about herself with her loved ones and struggles to understand why. The person who can help Healther most is the woman Ann was friends with before she left England: Miriam Dassin, a world renown artist who created a series of tapestries about her Jewish heritage and the Holocaust. With help from her grandson, Daniel, Miriam helps Heather piece together a history Ann kept secret.

The story unfolds in what feels like an organic and natural manner, embroidered (ha!) with historical detail of life after WWII in London with the rationing, the devastated economy, and the struggle to rebuild a country that was still having a hard time just surviving. The wedding of Queen Elizabeth (then a princess) was a brief shining moment in a period of great sacrifice, and it contrasts greatly the life of the ordinary people who make up the backbone of a country with the royals, whom are frequently questioned as “having any sort of worth considering what we pay for them.” Still, despite the grousing and the real hardship, people still do love a royal fairytale wedding--and when looking at the royal family, the real fairytale wedding has always been young Elizabeth with her dashing young naval officer, Philip. Now mind you, this is the story about the gown itself--not Queen Elizabeth or even the wedding, which gets only a handful of pages max. But as any hardcore Royals fan will tell you: it’s the dress we all love, am I right? So reading about the construction of such a gorgeous piece of history was amazing.

One of my favorite things about this story is that it brings back a character from one of Robson’s previous books, GOODNIGHT FROM LONDON, which featured an affable, lovable bloke named Kaz, who was editor for a magazine called Picture Weekly. The happy ending he was denied in that story is more than made up for in this one. While you don’t need to have read that story to appreciate this one, I would still recommend it...if only for the enjoyment of suddenly seeing an old friend come back and delight as you watch him fall in love.

I would go on, but I don’t want to give away every detail. Though I could. Just call me and I’ll be over in a jot with my copy to read to you. I can only say the story touched my heart and like great art, I will remember it long after this book sits on my keeper shelf. I don’t know what Jennifer Robson will write next, but I can’t wait. I know it will feel so vivid, I will think I’m there.

Beach Bag Reviews - - Goodnight From London

Short reviews of recently read books that have filled our days...and nights...with reading pleasure. First up: Goodnight From London!









Goodnight From London

by Jennifer Robson
Publisher: William Morrow  

Release Date: May 2, 2017 (paperback)
Reviewed by Hellie
 

Jennifer Robson has already established herself as a skillful artist, painting vivid landscapes and people from World War I and France with her novels, Somewhere in Paris and After the War is Over, both of which I greatly enjoyed. She equally doesn’t disappoint with her newly set World War II era, Goodnight From London, which features a plucky orphan, Ruby Sutton, from America who moves to England at the start of World War II to write for a sister magazine (to the magazine she writes for in America.)

In addition to the background of the Blitz (which went on from September 1940 to June 1941 with regularity), war rationing, battle of the sexes in the workplace, and a number of other things that regular readers of historical novels love to learn and never knew, Robson crafts a thoughtful, loving romance, full of heartbreak and a happy ending, if you could manage to have both simultaneously.

Ruby is a spunky but demur kind of heroine, not wanting to take anything she has not rightfully earned and someone who treats people with respect and kindness. Granted, that’s little enough to ask of your average heroine, but Robson’s voice creates Ruby as someone who is definitely a part of her times and setting. This is not a wallpaper type of historical romance, but one that offers thoughtful details and has characters who feel true to the period, while still modern enough to relate to. Bennett is a swoonworthy, Benedict Cumberbatch/Tom Hiddleston Englishman who makes you long to run off to England like Ruby and find one of your own. But he is no cardboard hero. He has a few flaws, and he keeps more than his fair share of secrets.

The secondary characters, Ruby and Bennett’s friends, are equally well drawn and I found myself longing for more novels that featured happy endings for them as well. And there were secondary characters, who when lost, I wept as if I’d lost my own friend. I wept at quite a few places because World War II holds a special place for me. I truly believe it was the Greatest Generation in the aspects of community, respect, and bravery exhibited by those who gave their all to overcome real evil. Robson talked about pieces of World War II I was unfamiliar with and which encouraged me to research a bit more. I hope she writes more novels in this setting.

I highly recommend and look forward to hearing what you think when you do read it.

Review - - After the War is Over

After the War is Over
By Jennifer Robson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: January 6, 2015

AFTER THE WAR IS OVER is a historical romance set post-World War I in England. The heroine, Charlotte Brown, is a proper but free-thinking modern woman who is much changed (as is everyone) after the Great War and is content with the life she has carved out for herself, helping the most needy and unfortunate and living in a boarding house with other lively women who are also living this new way of life. As is common with anyone who is not looking for love, two messages come that change her life. One is from an editor who wants her to write for his newspaper, to speak out on the things that other people cannot. One is from her past, reconnecting her with the one man she never got over, Lord Edward Neville-Ashford.

The story goes back and forth in time, showing the history between her and Edward and then reverting back to the current time to show how those decisions impacted current circumstances. She wants to help Edward, especially when she keeps getting glimpses of the boy she fell in love with; however, she knows he can never be hers and should she really scrap the life she’s worked so hard to create for herself.

The tone, voice, and setting are perfect with this period of history; I felt immersed in the story just from these things alone. I wasn’t so sure about Edward. Yes, he was charming and sweet where she was concerned, but when it mattered, would he step up? I worried for Charlotte for loving a man who could so easily set her aside, put her back into the position she was before she created her new life for herself.

If you’re a Downton Abbey fan—and have wanted fiction from around the time period—this book will appeal to you. The heroine reminds me a bit of Edith/Sybil, totally in love with a man she can’t have but willing to risk heartbreak anyway.  Fortunately for those literary heroines who are willing to risk much, much is gained.

~Hellie