Adele Parks is appearing at the Essex Book Festival, at Raleigh Library on Tuesday 4th March, to discuss her new novel, Spare Brides. I was very pleased to be asked to review Spare Brides, and interview Adele Parks in advance of her event. Today is ‘release day’ for the novel, and so, here is my review…
New Year’s Eve, 1920. The Great War is over and it’s a new decade of glamorous promise. But a generation of men and women who survived the extreme trauma and tragedy will never be the same.
With countless men lost, it seems that only wealth and beauty will secure a husband from the few who returned, but lonely Beatrice has neither attribute. Ava has both, although she sees marriage as a restrictive cage after the freedom war allowed. Sarah paid the war’s ultimate price: her husband’s life. Lydia should be grateful that her own husband’s desk job kept him safe, but she sees only his cowardice.
A chance encounter for on elf these women with a striking yet haunted officer changes everything. In a world altered beyond recognition, where not all scars are visible, this damaged and beautiful group must grasp any happiness they can find – whatever the cost. Continue reading “Review: Spare Brides by Adele Parks”