Many thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an advance copy of this novel.
This is another of Rosie Vlarke’s trademark historical sagas, an addition to her 1920s Dressmakers’ Alley series. As usual, she fills in enough context from the preceding installments to make this volume easy enough to read on its own.
A short, sweet story like its predecessors, with fully sketched characters and a rich historical setting, the book is lightly plotted. Misunderstandings and obstacles melt away quickly. Seemingly impossible odds are fast overcome. But that’s as it should be—these are stories meant to draw readers into a historical moment that is actually conflict-ridden, and show how characters use integrity and ingenuity to rise above the difficult times.
Held over from the previous book, we have young lawyer Tim, who wants to marry ambitious young dressmaker Susie. Having started as a seamstress for Lady Diane Cooper, Susie’s talents and work ethic have moved her up on the social scale. She is not only Lady Diane’s faithful company director, with her own Miss Susie line for office workers, she is also one of her closest friends. In a decided twist for women of her time, she has a wealthy lover (her term, with the intimacy it implies) who wants to marry her. He promises to respect her desire to keep working, but he wants children. She is wary of what that will mean for her independence, and worried that, in her late 30s, she might be past childbearing age. Interestingly, what would likely have been the main obstacle for a lower-class woman, Tim’s upper-class background and lineage, is not. He will inherit his uncle’s position and estate, and so needs his uncle!s approval, which his uncle is happy to give. He likes Susie and admires her ambition. But all kinds of obstacles crop up even when it appears all set, including a murder.
There is a parallel story in the relationship of Sir Matthew and young seamstress Janice. Matt, as he prefers to be called, is Lady Diane’s stepson. Although very close in age because his father, Lord Henry, had been widowed a long time before falling for the much younger beauty Diane, they dote on each other. Like his father, Matt is besotted with the spoiled product of the second marriage, little Marie. Lady Diane, who has hired Janice to sew for her shop despite her lack of work experience, very much encourages a relationship that even Janice feels is ‘above her’ and consequently inappropriate.
Tucked in between these intertwined stories is that of Susie’s brother Sam, married to the company receptionist Winnie, who is having a difficult first pregnancy. And then there is Joe, Sam’s work partner, who delivers coal and dreams of marrying as soon as he can put a decent down payment on a house.
What I most appreciate about Rosie Clarke’s stories is her attention to historical research, which she then weaves into the characters’ lives. She is especially good at showing what life must have been like for the working class and the poor, especially for women and immigrants. The coal miners’ strike is in the background, and we see how the colliers’ call for a sympathy strike receives support from most workers. But it can’t become a full fledged general strike because they need to support themselves and their families. They can’t afford it.
If the saga-nature of the story leads to some repetition of background that occasionally slows things down, this is ultimately another of Boldwood’s historical romances that will appeal to readers new and returning.