How I wanted to like this novel. Set in Britain in 1936, compared to TV series like Upstairs/Downstairs, written by the granddaughter of the elegant and witty Vita Sackville West.

But...I didn't.


The author seems to dislike many of her characters extremely, and by the end of the book you do too. Or you would if there were any sort of real sense of these characters.

What you get:
Two gratuitous deaths of small canines.
Some interesting fashion descriptions
Two glimpses of Virginia Woolf
The only book I've seen using the term chaffeuse (for a female driver of cars)
Royalty glimpsed at a distance
A riot or two
Looming war
Blackshirts
Children with ringlets
Hearty ladies in tweed with Sapphic inclinations
Children hulahooping in the slums (having apparently invented the toy of the 50's in 1936)
Virtuous refusal to eat fish and chips
Final seduction to greasy chips.
The love child of an Indian prince


What you don't get:
Characters who react to anything with any semblance of truth and emotion: Oh look, my little dog is dead, what's for tea? Oh dear, mommy is dead, what's for tea? Oh my, the Prince of Wales is dallying with an American woman...what's for tea? Oh, the King died. Would you like some tea?


(well, perhaps there is not quite so much tea. But that is the height of emotional reaction).

A plot with real development. (the book reads like...I don't know.."and then they went to Spain, and now let's talk about what's happening with the unhappy fat American friend of Wallis, and now! a baby is born!)

Maybe her next novel will be better. I sure hope so.