Park Lane (Vintage) [Paperback]

Frances Osborne (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 12, 2012 | Series: Vintage

The bestselling author of The Bolter returns with a delicious novel about two determined women whose lives collide in the halls of a pedigreed London town home.

When eighteen-year-old Grace Campbell arrives in London in 1914, she’s unable to fulfill her family’s ambitions and find a position as an office secretary. Lying to her parents and her brother, Michael, she takes a job as a housemaid at Number 35, Park Lane, where she is quickly caught up in lives of its inhabitants—in particular, those of its privileged son, Edward, and daughter, Beatrice, who is recovering from a failed relationship that would have taken her away from an increasingly stifling life. Desperate to find a new purpose, Bea joins a group of radical suffragettes and strikes up an intriguing romance with an impassioned young lawyer. Unbeknownst to each of the young women, the choices they make amid the rapidly changing world of WWI will connect their chances at future happiness in dramatic and inevitable ways.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Osborne has created a thoughtful and evocative tale of class barriers eroding and opportunities expanding."
—Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Though Bea and Edward are virtually unacquainted with Grace and Michael, the lives of all four already are more connected than they can imagine. And those connections will become more complex—and, in Osborne’s hands, intriguing—as war begins to impact the foundations of British society." —The Star-Ledger

"Fans of Downton Abbey will have plenty of reading choices this summer to fill the void left by the popular television series, including Frances Osborne's second novel.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Acclaim for Frances Osborne's The Bolter:

“Fascinating. . . beautifully written. . . . Frances Osborne brings the decadence of Britain’s dying aristocracy vividly to life in this story of scandal and heartbreak.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Young Stalin and Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar

“Osborne spins out an enjoyable pot-boiler, with lots of juicy details.” —New York Post

“[A] wildly entertaining biography.” —More

“Intoxicating.” —People

“For those who can’t ever get enough of the frolics and affairs of the British upper class in the ‘20s and ‘30s, this is the book for you. . . . Brilliant and utterly divine. . . . Full of charming details and wonderfully good stories about old scandals. . . . It’s a breath of fresh air from a vanished world.” —Michael Korda, The Daily Beast     
 
“Osborne has written an engaging book, drawing a ­revealing portrait of a remarkable woman and adding ­humanity to her 'scandalous' life. . . . And what a life it was." —The Wall Street Journal

About the Author

Frances Osborne was born in London and studied philosophy and modern languages at Oxford University. She is the author of Lilla’s Feast and The Bolter. Her articles have appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, the Daily Mail, and Vogue. She lives in London with her husband, George Osborne, and their two children.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 12, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780345803283
• ISBN-13: 978-0345803283
• ASIN: 0345803280
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing July 16, 2012

By Emily

Format:Paperback

This book should have been right up my alley, but alas, it was not to be. The pace is very, very slow-going. It picks up a bit at the end, but I had to force myself to get to that point. As a person who works daily in the written word, I noticed some editing errors and just felt the novel could have done with a good trimming in places. I also didn't like the ending, but that is just my personal taste. Overall, I was disappointed. I felt misled by the comparisons I heard to "Downton Abbey" and the seemingly good praise from Julian Fellowes.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good Edwardian fiction August 21, 2012

By Laurie A. Brown VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This book follows two women who live in a mansion on Park Lane: Bea, the single, recently jilted, daughter who still lives at home, and Grace, working as a housemaid despite her secretarial training because her lower class, northern accent bars her from London office work. Both Grace and Bea have secrets; Grace has told her family that she's doing respectable office work rather than being a maid; Bea is joining her aunt as a follower of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, while Bea's mother has long supported the non-violent suffragists. Bea and Grace are at the opposite ends of the social hierarchy in the house- and personality. Bea is an excitement junkie; loving fast cars and motorcycles, the thrilling fear at the suffragette rallies, fast ambulance driving practically on the front, and meeting a man who is `not of her class'. Grace seeks safety and worries constantly about not living up to family expectations.

Divided into years, the story covers 1914 to 1923 (with a gap between 1918 and 1923). This is a tumultuous age in England; WW I, socialism and the women's suffrage movement all changed the lives of rich and poor alike. There is violence at the suffragette rallies, incredible loss of life in the trenches of WW I, post traumatic stress for both men and women (who drive ambulances in the war zones and nurse the torn up men), class differences come to mean a *little* less, and women gain more freedom well before they get the vote.

I enjoyed the book- I find the era fascinating (while a fan of Downton, I first was introduced to the era when PBS ran `The Forsyte Saga' way back around 1970) and Osborne knows the time intimately- she had to, to write the brilliant biography `The Bolter'- and she has a great power of description. But I feel the book could have been better. Bea comes off as rather hard and it's difficult to sympathize with her. Grace likable enough, but passages about things she goes through that should make us terrified for her are a bit flat. One character who connects the two women, Grace's brother Michael, seems like he was created only to connect them- he's introduced as a socialist, a budding writer, but he doesn't really do anything with it. A subplot about sneaking books out of the house to him starts out extremely tense but is allowed to peter out to nothing. Because of these faults, I'm afraid I can only give the book four stars. But remember that this is Osborne's first fiction book- when that's taken into consideration, it's pretty great.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely vile August 6, 2012

By Maia H.

Format:Kindle Edition

I can't believe how bad this was. Weird, stream-of-consciousness writing, not one but TWO despicable protagonists, not one or even two but THREE unconvincing "romances", and an ending that made me spit with rage. There is no point in reading a book which makes you feel soiled after finishing it, and even less in reading one which ends in utter misery for all concerned. Ghastly.