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Summary
Summary
A Goldsboro Crown Historical Fiction Award Nominee
The bestselling author of The Bolter returns with a delicious novel about two determined women whose lives collide in the halls of a pedigreed London town home.
When eighteen-year-old Grace Campbell arrives in London in 1914, she's unable to fulfill her family's ambitions and find a position as an office secretary. Lying to her parents and her brother, Michael, she takes a job as a housemaid at Number 35, Park Lane, where she is quickly caught up in lives of its inhabitants--in particular, those of its privileged son, Edward, and daughter, Beatrice, who is recovering from a failed relationship that would have taken her away from an increasingly stifling life. Desperate to find a new purpose, Bea joins a group of radical suffragettes and strikes up an intriguing romance with an impassioned young lawyer. Unbeknownst to each of the young women, the choices they make amid the rapidly changing world of WWI will connect their chances at future happiness in dramatic and inevitable ways.
Author Notes
Frances Osborne was born in London and studied philosophy and modern languages at Oxford University. She is the author of Lilla's Feast and The Bolter. nbsp;Her articles have appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, the Daily Mail, and Vogue. She lives in London with her husband, George Osborne, and their two children.
Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
Rigid class roles and the struggling rise of women's independence in 1914 Britain make up the heart of Osborne's first novel. Grace Campbell is 18 when she arrives in London and reluctantly snags the only job she can, as housemaid to a wealthy family. Quickly plunged into the interests and intrigues of a family buffered by serving staff in a society on the brink of world war, Grace discovers the quietly opinionated daughter of the family, Beatrice, might be a kindred soul. Bea has returned from America following a broken engagement and is searching for deeper meaning in her life. Reflecting the viewpoints of each woman in her very different yet inexorably linked circumstances dictated by class mores, time, and country, the story line follows the trajectory of wartime looming over a country on the brink of massive changes. The premise of women's suffrage laces tightly throughout the plot as well, lending inner conflict and viewpoints that enrich the characterization. Set in the same time period as the popular Downton Abbey television series, this title will appeal to fans of its era.--Trevelyan, Julie Copyright 2010 Booklist
Guardian Review
Frances Osborne may be married to the chancellor but, whatever the motivation behind her choice of literary subjects, it is plainly not a desire to alleviate media criticism that the present government is too posh. Her last book, The Bolter, was a biography of her great-grandmother, the scandalously five-times married and divorced Idina Sackville; also, according to Osborne, the inspiration for the delinquent mother in Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love This time it is Osborne who plunders her family's history for fictional ends. Sackville was the daughter of Muriel Brassey, whose great-grandfather had made a fortune in railways. By the start of the 20th century the money was running out but the family still lived in a magnificent mansion overlooking Hyde Park. The Brassey women, and Muriel in particular, were also prominent campaigners for women's suffrage. Muriel's story provides the inspiration for Osborne's first novel. It is the spring of 1914 and 20-year-old Beatrice Masters is at a loose end. Though endless dinners and dances hold little appeal, she is hardly more interested in her mother's politics. Lady Masters is a suffragist, an advocate of peaceful protest and political pressure. Bea's Aunt Celeste - a passionate suffragette who believes only violent protest will force change, and whom Lady Masters has banned from the house - piques Bea's interest. One night, at Celeste's invitation, Bea attends a rally led by the notorious Emmeline Pankhurst. It is a decision that is to alter the course of her life. Meanwhile, in the servants' hall, a new maid has joined the household. Grace Campbell, a bright girl from Carlisle, had hoped to gain a position as a secretary but instead is forced to accept a job with the Masters as a third housemaid. Grace is an engaging character, untrammelled by the cliches of the upstairs, downstairs tradition. Her family were once mill owners who, not unlike the more aristocratic Masters, have fallen on harder times. Being further down the social scale, they cannot so easily disguise their straitened circumstances, but they remain fiercely respectable. Grace's mother keeps a silver spoon in a box on the mantelshelf: "To sell it, Ma says, would be selling the fact that my ma was lady enough to own a silver spoon." Grace is educated and a skilled typist, but her thick northern accent deters potential employers. It is not equality at the ballot box that she yearns for, but equality of opportunity. The novel is told from the alternating points of view of the two women. Grace has a distinctive and likable voice, rich with lively idiom and often very funny, though it is at times hard to follow the whimsical slippage from the third person to the first as her thoughts intercut the narrative. Beatrice is less well rounded. In her historical note Osborne describes Muriel Brassey as "tiny in stature, but huge in character", but she struggles to capture this vivacity on the page. It is a shame, then, that, as war breaks out, Osborne rather abandons Grace's story to follow Beatrice to France. The scenes on the western front are among the best in the book, but fail to make a whole of the novel. The over-long first half could have done with some judicious editing: once the war begins, and the story accelerates through the next 10 years, too many aspects of the plot turn out to have no consequence, or are simply forgotten. Osborne has a pacy style and an assured grasp of period, which make Park Lane a breezy read, but the spirit of the real-life Muriel remains tantalisingly out of reach. Clare Clark's Beautiful Lies is published by Harvill Secker. To order Park Lane for pounds 11.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846. - Clare Clark This time it is [Frances Osborne] who plunders her family's history for fictional ends. Sackville was the daughter of Muriel Brassey, whose great-grandfather had made a fortune in railways. By the start of the 20th century the money was running out but the family still lived in a magnificent mansion overlooking Hyde Park. The Brassey women, and Muriel in particular, were also prominent campaigners for women's suffrage. Muriel's story provides the inspiration for Osborne's first novel. - Clare Clark.
Kirkus Review
Two young women from very different social classes cope with changing conventions and life-altering events in 20th-century England. Eighteen-year-old Grace Campbell travels to London from Carlisle, a city in the northwest, to find employment as a secretary in order to provide financial assistance for her parents and siblings. But jobs are scarce, and she is forced to take a position as a maid in the Masters household. Unwilling to disappoint her family, Grace feels compelled to lie to her parents and to her brother, Michael, a clerk residing in London, about her circumstances. Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Lady Masters, recently was jilted by her fiance, John, and she is expected to quickly find a new suitor and marry. Although she and Grace are from disparate backgrounds, both girls find themselves chafing at the constraints of traditional society. Bea, caught up in the excitement of the suffragist movement, joins an underground organization that supports suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Grace engages in an uncharacteristic and desperate act to assist her family and to hide from them the truth about her employment. Meanwhile, Bea becomes involved with a mysterious man who rescues her from potential harm during the violent protests, and Grace is strongly attracted to Joseph, another servant employed by the Masters. But when World War I intervenes, both young women's lives veer in unforeseen directions, in part due to circumstances over which they have no control, and in part because of the decisions they make. A poignant and fascinating story, Osborne developed the plot for her first novel after researching a book about an ancestor (The Bolter, 2009, etc.). She masterfully intertwines the lives of her heroines with historical events and figures, which lends credibility to the plot and the characters she has created. Osborne's efforts are solid, and her book will appeal to both historical fiction buffs and romance enthusiasts alike.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Grace can just see the bedroom door handle ahead of her. In daylight it'd be so bright her face would stare back from the brass. But it's not dawn yet and barely February, so there's just the night-city glow coming through the glass roof. Size of a schoolyard, it is, all that glass. There's as much empty space in the hall of this house as there is in a church. She's almost there now, made it along the passageway all quiet, and with a dead weight in her grasp. She's not a big girl, either, is Grace. The handle is night-cold and turnip-big, fingers only just getting a turn. Slowly, Grace Campbell, for it'll come, and Lord knows when. If you go quick through it the noise is quicker, though it'll be a screech. A foot open the door is when it squeaks, but don't you stop still, Grace Campbell, for the dead light's coming in with you. Another couple of inches, that's all. There it is, and still the bed's quiet. She's in; pull the door to or the draught'll gush. A week she's been here and she's learning fast, though what could get through those shutters and weigh-a-ton curtains is beyond her. The door closed, it's pitch, and damp from a night's sleep. Let go the handle slowly now, oh Lord, what's she in for, the latch might as well be a hoof on stone. There's a noise to her left, a starched-sheet rustle. Grace stops and it comes again, a slide, a pat of a pillow. A light comes on, and Grace is in a room of heavy red and green creeper wallpaper. The room smells of dried roses, and she's facing a wall of red velvet curtain that has seen better days. Lying in the curtained bed, blankets up to her nose, is a young woman hardly older than Grace. Her face, thinks Grace, is so dainty pale that you'd barely see it on the pillow if there wasn't that hair all round, thick and brown and shining as though it is brushed all day and night. Grace's own dark hair is pulled back and into her mob cap, so's you can't see it matches her eyes; they're not like the pair looking at her from the bed, blue that could be ice or sky, who's to know which. Puts a fear into Grace, not knowing. The scuttle's near pulling her arm out now, worse when you're still, even with how her arms are hardening. She can't put it down, not on the carpet, ever, though there's not a trace of coal dust left on the bottom. Though she can't hold it for much longer and not put it down, she'll drop it soon enough, and imagine the mess with that. Not to mention the riot she'd be read downstairs. Out it would be, almost as soon as she'd arrived. The worry's enough to make her angry. Drop the scuttle why don't you, Grace Campbell, tidy the sheets with your coal-smeared hands, and tell Miss Beatrice that if she'd went to bed at a reasonable hour she wouldn't mind being woken now. 'Good morning?' The very mildness of the words is water on her heat, almost so she forgets to bob, as well as she can, what with the scuttle and turning. 'Ever so sorry, Miss Beatrice. It won't happen again, the door.' Miss Beatrice sits up and her dark hair falls on to her nightdress, all white like an angel's gown. She moves her head, hair like rain as it comes down. 'The door squeaks. You can't help it. Well, hardly anyone can. There is a trick to it but, but, I'm not quite up to leaping out of bed and giving a demonstration.' 'Yes, Miss Beatrice. Would you like me to get it seen to?' Grace almost has it now, talking all respectful as she's supposed to. 'No, I meant . . . Oh, don't worry. I suspect it is an idea of Mother's so that she can hear when I come in, and she'll just find some other way.' There's no waiting-up here, thinks Grace, not like Ma and Da'd do. Mind you, it wasn't as if Grace was ever out at those hours. Three or four in the morning for Master Edward, she'd heard from the footmen, who'd be half gone having to wait by the door until he came in. You wouldn't have thought that was proper, or that Lady Masters would have any of it. It's Grace who's waiting now, poker-straight, even if the coals are trying to bend her. 'Please.' Miss Beatrice tilts her head towards the fireplace. 'Thank you, miss, I mean Miss Beatrice, miss.' Get it right, Grace Campbell, she tells herself and attempts another bob, a rickety one, though, but to the grate, quick. On your knees and reach right to the back, sweep like you're icing a cake. If she doesn't look like she's just out the mine it's a miracle then. Speck in her eye, and a big one, eye's a river but shut it tight, for you can't stop. Fire's lit, and Miss Beatrice's head is back on the pillow, eyes tight though the lamp's still on. Scuttle half the weight now, it's back to the door, tiptoe now. 'What's your name?' 'Grace, miss.' 'Grace.' 'Yes, Miss Beatrice.' 'I like that name.' 'Thank you, miss.' 'Where are you from, Grace?' 'Carlisle.' Somewhere Miss Beatrice has never been, Grace's sure of that. At least not to Grace's part of Carlisle. Not grand, her street isn't, though the houses only joined to one other, and all new, even if the fresh red brick darkened almost as soon as it went up. And they'd had a maid once. Well, a tweeny. Then Ma said it was an extravagance, in the circumstances. Grace likes to think the girl has gone on to better luck. 'Long way. Almost Scotland.' Grace nods, mouth shut in case her thoughts come out. Your impulses, Grace, Ma says. Hold them in and you'll go far, we'll be right proud of you. 'Don't worry about the door. I don't usually wake. Maybe it's because I hadn't heard your step before.' Grace waits; she can't walk on, not while Miss Beatrice is talking to her, not until she's been told she can. That's the rule she's been given, even if Miss Beatrice has stopped talking and is just looking at her. Then Miss Beatrice says thank you, sweetly, as though she means it. Of a sudden there's a warmth in Grace, the tip of a smile spreading on her and pride that is the first since she came to Number Thirty-Five last week. Out it comes, before the words are through her head even, 'Cup o' tea, Miss Beatrice?' 'Is anyone in the kitchen yet?' What to say to that? If the kitchen maids aren't in there by now, it'll be their last day. She's out of the room and back along the gallery, where she treads careful and quiet down the middle of the carpet, thick and red enough for a palace. A palace can't be much grander than this house, with all the drawing rooms and saloons, they call them, opening into one another with doors near the size of the front of a house in those side streets Ma always told her to avoid. There's a ballroom at the back, too, whole width of the house, and at the front there's five windows, overlooking Hyde Park. Inside could do with a lick of paint, take a year to do it, it would, Grace's guess, more even. Wallpaper needs doing too, only so much as you can hide behind paintings, and some of those paint- ings, well . . . Grace can feel herself blush. There's a dozen of them where the people aren't wearing any clothes at all. Grace hurries. There's Lady Masters' room to do, and her lady's maid's, and Master Edward's. Mary is putting her hand to the big rooms. The large rooms suit Mary, she's a big girl. In their bed at night Grace is hard pushed not to find herself up against all that thick blonde hair and a chest that the rest of her follows behind. Mary knows how men look at her, she does, and sometimes wiggles a little as she walks, as though her heart's on her sleeve for the taking, which in a way it is, even for Grace. Let's be sisters, Mary says to her in their bed at night, like there were no division between them, and Mary not second housemaid to Grace's third and Grace doing the chamber pots. Pots! She's forgotten the pot in Miss Beatrice's room. Will she now have to do it in front of her, holding a vinegar rag stinking worse that what's in the pot itself? Perhaps Miss Beatrice walks to the bathroom at the back, the younger ones, they surely do that. What an idea, putting Grace into the bedrooms when she is so new. Years of practice it must take to do it quiet, and there wasn't a chance of that. Grace has to be up and running fast. So why's she gone and offered tea to Miss Beatrice when she shouldn't be doing tea now and it'll make her late? She was soft, wasn't she, after what Mary told her. Miss Beatrice, Mary said when they lay talking at night, had her heart right broken. Just the other day. Stories that Mary's told, Grace shouldn't believe half of them, but she's a way of making things sound true, pushes any questions there are right aside. Even about the tall one, that she'd swum from her da's dock -- well, not his, but where his work is -- right across the Thames and back again. In the East End, too, where the river's wider, for that's where she's from, Mary. East End might as well be on the Continent for the distance it sounds away. Yes, says Mary, it's another place, and lose yourself in it you do, before you can blink. It's still night in the kitchen, downstairs under the street. All freezing grey cavern it is, ceiling only just above ground along the north side of the house. The windows are on the top half, being the only place that overlooks the pavement, and even that's only on to a high-walled, not-so-wide street at the side that sees little light. Why it's painted grey in here is beyond Grace. The rest of the floor, the housekeeper's and butler's rooms, the servants' hall, even the passageways, are brown and yellow, and the colour gives a bit of brightness, yellow, warm, too. The kitchen is all black ovens and pots, the only softening the long bare wood table running the length of it. Seat thirty, it would, but the kitchen only crowd around one end of it, rest of it is piled high with choppings and stirrings. The oven's heated an hour now, still coal dust in the air, though that could just be Grace's own fingers, the smell stuck to them. Water's already on, tiny bubbles there too. Grace and the kitchen maids are over the top, three frilly mob caps in a row. 'There's bubbles, that means it's done,' says Grace. 'Hardly see them.' 'It's hot enough.' 'Stew-tea, that's all you'll get. But it ain't my job.' 'No,' says Grace, looking at the slag heap of greased plates. Fire or sink, Grace wonders as she climbs the stairs with Miss Beatrice's tea on a tray, which is the better? Better she says, not good, for better was simply better than worse. Excerpted from Park Lane by Frances Osborne All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.