Bloomsbury Girls

I just finished Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner and here is my review.

Bloomsbury books sells new and rare books and has been run by men for 100 years. After the war, things need to change but the management, all being men, means nothing will change. The ladies that work there have other ideas.

Vivien, Grace and Evie all come from different backgrounds and life experiences but their goals all seem to align. Vivien should have been married but he died in the war. Grace, married with two sons but her husband is a shadow of his former self after the war. Evie was in the very first class of women allowed to get a degree at Cambridge but lost an academic position to a less suited male.

They all have dreams that women would never dream of having back then but they all want more than life is giving them.

This historical fiction is set in the aftermath of WWII and follows the lives of 3 women who all work in a book shop. It starts out a little slow but it gives us a chance to meet the ladies and really get to know who they are. I didn't really warm up to any of them like I usually would but I found their dynamic rather charming. They were all strong women during a time where women were little more than placeholders to their spouses.

Loved the setting of the book store and the ambience of the old building. There were some really lovely descriptive parts in the book which I really enjoyed. The book was really quite wonderful and I thought the ending was really well done.

I will definitely be on the hunt for more from this author.

4 stars,

Thank you @stmartinspress for my gifted copy