I thoroughly enjoyed The Jane Austen Society, so I have been looking forward to Bloomsbury Girls. Natalie Jenner did not disappoint! Bloomsbury Girls extends the world of The Jane Austen society, pulling some of its characters into a London bookshop in 1950 and tossing them into the mix with a host of other colorful characters. There’s Evie, young, ambitious, and newly disillusioned with the impenetrability of the glass ceiling. There’s Vivien, widowed before she got a chance to be married to the love of her life and embittered, yet somehow lovable. And Grace, trapped in a marriage to the kind of guy who isn’t bad enough to leave, but makes her life miserable.
There are also men in this book–stuffy, goodhearted men; self-centered, determined-to-get-ahead men; kind, forward-thinking men.
But it’s the women who save themselves in this book. Romance, scheming, the drama you would never associate with academia–oh, and, just for fun, a host of literary giants walk across the pages. It was a delight from start to finish.
Kathleen M. Basi 