Customer Reviews

Julia's Way

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I won't go over the plot again in detail but will comment that it was an interesting time in which to set this story, the 1920s. It's out of my own comfort zone and I can't recall having read a romantic/historical novel set in this period before. However many incidents in the story relate well to our own times and this novel was written after the bank scancal of 2007 so it is particularly poignant in that some of the difficulties faced by the characters are being faced again today in the recessionary world in which we live.

Comments: Julia is the strong character in a family faced with instant and complete poverty from a life of ease, wealth and position. As such she must take care of a mother who is apparently to weak to face up to reality, a brother and sisters who need to be motivated and, indeed, she must self-motivate in order to help feed and maintain her family. This she does with remarkable success along with her partner (they live together but don't marry initially - quite a scandal in those times I should think). Simon Layzell and Julia build up a successful, thriving fashion house but he has feet of clay and is not your typical romance hero in that his faults do not disappear and his actions bring the story full circle: think "clogs to clogs in three generations" but in one decade instead. There is a feeling of foreboding throughout this story. Our H/h experience high points but you never escape the feeling of dread that it will all come unstuck.

Julia's family are well drawn. One sister is selfish, smart mouthed, uncaring and a main chancer of a snob. Her brother is more low key but being so much younger his actions are a little less selfish. A second sister is more accommodating and sweet. Julia's mother is simply ghastly. I can't remember a mother being more difficult in romantic fiction for a long time. You want to smack her, shake her and tell her to get a life. Julia just about copes with her but her presence marks them all.

This was not a particularly happy book. Set in the 1920s, you always know much will end in tears. The author's great talent here is that despite this, knowing that it will not have a HEA ending, you still turn the pages because the story is so well written that you need to know what happens next.

I can't give this book 5 stars; I would prefer 4.5 if it were possible. I think that sometimes there is a tad too much melodrama and some of the plot devices are unnuanced and a bit harsh. However, it is, overall, a stylishly written, sometimes highly emotional, sometimes highly charged story with interesting and attention keeping characters. I will look out for something else by this writer.

British author Elizabeth Lord gives us a story of courage and fortitude in Julia's Way, one of the nine novels she's had published by Severn House. Julia and her story can at times be both charming and repellant. It is also rich in detail and an outstanding historical adventure.

Julia has grown up in London in a comfortable home on the outskirts of the East End. It's 1921 and Julia is about to be engaged. She's not sure she loves Chester but knows he'll provide a good life. Then her father suddenly dies leaving the family in poverty and Julia finds out who her friends are and are not including her fiancé who is no longer interested in marriage to Julia.

The family is forced to move to a more `affordable' neighborhood where they meet Simon Layzell. Between her mother's fragility and grief Julia must now take care of not only her siblings and mother but also find enough income for the family to survive. She and Simon go into partnership building a humble little shop into a hugely successful design house. But when the stock market crashes will Julia and Simon be able to maintain the business and life they have come to enjoy?

Elizabeth Lord conveys the story of Julia in a manner that flows naturally with details both accurate for the time frame and vivid in the telling. As we turn the pages we can feel not only Julia's frustration and determination but also the jubilation that comes with her success and the fear of destruction by circumstances beyond her control.