Park Lane
Frances Osborne
Park Lane
London, 1914. Two young women dream of breaking free from tradition and obligation; they know that suffragettes are on the march and that war looms, but at 35 Park Lane, Lady Masters, head of a dying industrial dynasty, insists that life is about service and duty.Below stairs, housemaid Grace Campbell is struggling. Her family in Carlisle believes she is a high earning secretary, but she has barely managed to get work in service - something she keeps even from her adored brother. Asked to send home more money than she earns, Grace is in trouble.
2.6 out of 5 based on 7 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
336 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
June 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-1844084791 |
| Publisher |
Virago |
| |
London, 1914. Two young women dream of breaking free from tradition and obligation; they know that suffragettes are on the march and that war looms, but at 35 Park Lane, Lady Masters, head of a dying industrial dynasty, insists that life is about service and duty.
Below stairs, housemaid Grace Campbell is struggling. Her family in Carlisle believes she is a high earning secretary, but she has barely managed to get work in service - something she keeps even from her adored brother. Asked to send home more money than she earns, Grace is in trouble.
John Crace's Digested Read — The Guardian.
Reviews
The Guardian
Clare Clark
“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.”
29/06/2012
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The Independent
Emma Hagestadt
“While Osborne's descriptive passages take their cue from the Farrow & Ball colour card – skies are "pigeon-grey" and complexions "dainty pink"– there is nothing wrong with a fictional debut that springs to life in the second half. The responsibility of marrying fact and fiction, however, seems to have had a dampening effect on her storytelling – something her nearest and dearest might have warned her about.”
26/06/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Elena Seymenliyska
“Some of the most arresting passages in the novel concern Mrs Pankhurst; Osborne brings the dynamics of the suffragette movement to vivid life. Bea first glimpses the diminutive but messianic figure at a rally, and is moved to join the cause ... But the war is only around the corner and soon Bea has more excitement than she can handle as a volunteer ambulance driver. From then on, the second half of the novel is very much on the downward slope, with few surprises on the way.”
28/06/2012
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The Evening Standard
Jaclie Annesley
“It’s the sort of mum-lit you would expect from a former barrister — measured and workable, if lacking in the flair department. The “ee by gum” prose from Grace is intensely grating, but the pace picks up after the first 60 pages and Osborne proves she can weave an engaging story between the two women and provide an unexpected ending.”
31/05/2012
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The Sunday Times
Karen Robinson
“ On-the-shelf debutante Beatrice’s involvement with the suffragettes is vividly imagined, but much of the rest, tinged with tragedy and transgressive inter-class romance, feels formulaic.”
15/07/2012
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The Independent
Emma Hagestadt
“Here, her playfulness seems to have evaporated. While the novel gleams with telling historical detail, it sells us short when it comes to the more illicit pleasures of the master-servant genre.”
03/05/2013
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The Observer
Julie Burchill
“There is a strong whiff of the midnight oil coming from this novel and you can imagine Mrs Osborne cramming like crazy at the British Library to get all the little period details just so. But at a time when there is so much brilliant, vivid history available via radio, television and non-fiction books, it seems wildly pointless to trudge through this era one more time at great fictional length unless a bunch of unforgettable characters has been created to dance us down the centuries. Seriously, I've come across paper dolls with more depth than this crew ... It's hard to make an account of the righteous, violent struggle for women's suffrage read as boringly as a budget, but Mrs Osborne pulls off this feat quite seamlessly.”
07/06/2012
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