Author: Kate Quinn
Performed by Saskia Maarleveld
Published by Harper Collins July 2024
Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery
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A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.
Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.
Briarwood House, a boarding house for ladies, is run by mean spirited Mrs Nilsson, along with her two children (an impressionable teenage boy and a younger girl with eyesight issues) who she rules with an iron fist. Set in Washington in the 1950s during the McCarthy era, Briarwood House itself plays a large part of the story.
The residents of Briarwood House go about their daily business, keeping themselves to themselves. That is until the enigmatic Grace March becomes a resident. She brings the place to life from her tiny attic room, where she paints a mural to brighten up the drab room, and with weekly dinner parties and her home brewed sun tea everyone becomes friends. Well, mostly everyone.
Briarwood House doesn’t like Mrs Nilsson. Hasn’t liked her since she first crossed the threshold as a bride, complaining before she’d even shaken the rice out of her hair that the halls were too narrow (My halls, too narrow!), and still doesn’t like her twenty years down the road. No one else in this kitchen does, either, the house knows perfectly well. People aren’t that hard to read.
The Briar Club is much more than a who-done-it, or murder mystery, despite that fact it might give that impression initially. The story is fascinating, with the differing characters (including ex baseball star Bea and Nora who is involved with a gangster) and their respective back stories. Also addressed are the societal and cultural issues of the time, highlighted by references to the McCarthy era, racism, politics, women’s rights and their equality in society to name a few. Not to mention the quirkiness of the house as a character which adds a lighthearted touch.
The dynamics between the women, particularly when they meet for their weekly dinners, isn’t always without disagreements, as each of them take turns to cook a meal. There are secrets, tensions and vulnerabilities percolating in the background as the story progresses and we learn more about the well developed characters’ lives.
The Briar Club is a character driven tale, with a cast of strong female leads and chapters alternating between each of the women’s backgrounds, slowly building to a surprising and explosive ending. I listened to this book and Saskia Maarleveld, as always, does a great job in giving the characters their individual voices and characterisation.
Kate Quinn is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. A native of southern California, she attended Boston University where she earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Classical Voice. She has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga, and two books in the Italian Renaissance, before turning to the 20th century with “The Alice Network”, “The Huntress,” “The Rose Code,” “The Diamond Eye,” and “The Briar Club.” She is also a co-author in several collaborative novels including “The Phoenix Crown” with Janie Chang and “Ribbons of Scarlet” with Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, Eliza Knight, Sophie Perinot, and Heather Webb. All have been translated into multiple languages. Kate and her husband now live in Maryland with three rescue dogs.
