A story of sliding doors. The decision of who Agnes should let a room to, will change the course of events for everyone.
A slow burn of a story but well worth reading.

This was a very enjoyable read, with interesting characters and plot. The pacing was a little slow at points, but picked up at others. I don't usually enjoy romances, but here the romance stayed fairly limited, which meant I enjoyed the book more.

A really enjoyable book. Very different to what I usually read but this book captured my attention from beginning to end. An interesting set of characters, all with secrets makes this an intriguing read

I liked the stories of the three potential lodgers but I thought the story dragged at times. Overall, an enjoyable story. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I tried, I truly did! However this book did nothing for me! I loved the sumary and the what if aspect, but finishing Clara's story alone required too much effort. I had to DNF it.

I enjoyed the concept of this book and on the whole enjoyed the read,

No 23 Burlington Sq follows the 3 different ways the decision made by Agnes Humphries may have turned out.
Agnes owns a large house in. London, namely No 23 Burlington Square. It’s 1927 and she has been renting rooms in her family home for several years. One of her tenants has recently passed away and so she advertised his rooms and interviews 3 prospective tenants.
The 3 stories which follow are the stories of what happened depending upon which applicant she offers the rooms to.

I found at times this dragged a little but on the whole I really enjoyed it. I did also feel at times the author may even have confused herself with what was going on in each time line for example in Mercy’s story at one point she is discussing with one of the other tenants his life and mentions his lost son may still be alive, yet later when the son is discovered it appears she didnt even know he had a son. Which was a little confusing.
Interspersed with each different applicants timeline we had chapters telling us Agnes story and how she came to be alone living in Burlington Sq. We were also treated to an epilogue, which gave us the narrative of what really happened and how life evolved for all the characters.


I haven’t read any of this authors previous works and am now keen to explore more. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title

This book was nothing like I expected. It’s like the film’ “sliding doors”, but set in the 1920s.
I loved the twists and turns, and only figured out one of the 3 “secrets” ahead of the big reveals.
It’s definitely worth a read.

I've never heard the term "sliding door" but apparently that's what this is. I thought it was very unique and extremely well done. The main character needs to find a new renter for one of the rooms in her house. She has three applicants. The book is decided up in parts, each part being how the story would play out if each individual got the room. The other two applicants are also featured in each part.

I really did love the uniqueness of this story. I would definitely read more by this author.

Thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

An interesting read about how a landlady's choice impacts her lodgers' lives. In this "sliding doors" scenario you discover what happens with each choice and gradually learn more about all the characters. Revealing that not everything is as it seems. Among the three narratives, those of Clara, the niece, and widow Mercy, stand out the most. I also loved Agnes en i think everyone deserves a landlady like her.

I got this arc in exchange for an honest review.

23 Burlington square has a free room and Miss Agnes Humphries is as the landlady looking for the perfect match to her other lodgers in the house. The most normal choice would be her niece Clara who is looking for a room. But there is also the respectable Stephen, a bank clerk, and the widower Mercy, who seems to need the room most of all. Agnes is a lovely lady always ready to do well and help. Through alternate timelines we follow the relationships that are formed and revelations which are made, discovering the consequences (good and bad) of Agnes choosing one of the possible lodgers. The different paths are explored and lead in the end to a full story in which the vibrant Clara, Gilbert, respectable Stephen, Jemima who keeps going with het life as a mother while she hopes for a different life, Mr Gorsky the musician ... they all become an important part of Nr 23. Through all if her decisions, Agnes gets to know her lodgers and while she sees the good in all of them, she also realize that they all put on a persona, even her.
The story was nice from the beginning, developing into an interesting story. But towards the last ten chapters I needed help if tea and chocolate to be able to read in with a bouncing heart of anticipation!!!!

It is not often that a book will knock me for six, to use a cricket analogy, but No. 23 Burlington Square by Jenni Keer did just that. Ultimately this has become one of my favourite reads of the year.

This book is a timeslip book, providing what is known as a ‘Sliding Doors’ moment, where the owner of the house needs to let out one of the set of rooms in this slightly shabby, cluttered townhouse on a London square, and the three individual applicants for the rooms get their own section of the book. In each section, the timeslip allows us to see what would happen if Agnes the owner of the house had chosen each of the applicants.

The first and most thorough of the stories looks at Clara, the niece of Agnes and one of the ‘Bright Young Things’ of the 1920s, a group of dissolute aristocrats and socialites who were known for their parties and wild ways. Considerably larger than the other two stories, this story really captured my heart as we looked at what would have happened if Agnes had allowed her wayward niece to live with her.

Clara’s story was beautifully told, and I adored her character progression. Immensely selfish when she arrived, she was gradually changed by her connections with the other residents of No. 23, and I particularly loved her unlikely friendships with Alexander and Jemima.

The stories of Stephen and Mercy are in less depth, but the three stories combined draw so many connections between all of them and the other people whose lives come into contact with the main characters. I loved the time and location settings, between the first and second world war, when women had received a glimpse into a future where they would be treated with equality and respect. The fictional square itself had a park in the middle, a small oasis of calm in a bustling city, and the house filled with clutter and memories of times gone by really captured my imagination.

No. 23 Burlington Square by Jenni Keer is an intricately woven timeslip story that captures a snapshot of a time filled with possibilities, and emphasises the need for a sense of belonging in life.

Description
London, 1927: One house. Three lives. A decision that will change everything. A powerful, unique timeslip story, perfect for fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The Miniaturist, and Lucinda Riley.
On the morning of Friday 5th August, 1927, Miss Agnes Humphries – the landlady of the attractive, if-slightly-shabby, white-fronted townhouse at Number 23 Burlington Square – has a decision to make!

The landlady has a decision to make after interviewing people for the recently vacated room. This story tells us. how things may have turned out, if each of the 3 people, had been the one to successfully be chosen. A but of a Sliding Doors Vibe!


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3.7 Stars
One Liner: Entertaining but drags in the middle

05th Aug 1927
Miss Agnes Humphries, the landlady of No. 23 Burlington Square, has to decide among three prospective tenants for the second floor. It has been empty since the unfortunate death of Mr. Blandford. Agnes has three options –
• Young Clara, her niece, living the glamorous life of a privileged daughter but with hidden pain deep inside her,
• Stephen, the sensible bank clerk who will surely pay the rent on time and seems a little too good to be true and wants something hidden in the past,
• Mercy, a young war widow down, on her luck and running away from her past and the painful life that made things hell.
Each choice will lead to different endings – bittersweet resolution, wrong choice for everyone, and a HEA. How will Agnes choose? As each gets a chance to rent the place in alternative timelines, Agnes may realize things she hadn’t considered before.
The story comes in the third-person POV of the main characters – Agnes, Clara, Stephen, and Mercy.

My Thoughts:
When the book title and cover highlight the house, it should have a prominent part in the plot. I’m happy to report the house indeed has a presence. While some of it may be due to Agnes, you can feel the house.
The house has other tenants- an old Polish musician on the first floor, a mysterious photographer in the attic, and a young and impoverished family with kids in the basement. Each time, the lives of these people are affected differently, though one of them gets a major share. This ensures they don’t remain passive but have an active role in the story.
I like the choice of beginning with Clara since most readers will inevitably root for Mercy. It’s not easy to like Clara, but she will grow on you to an extent. Stephen’s part falls in the middle. Though it has its merits, it weighs down the pacing and makes the book slow. Mercy comes in the last section, finally promising to reveal the secrets hidden until now.
Given the structuring, we have to accept repetition in the timelines. However, a few other details are also repeated, slowing the narration even more. The book could have been less than 400 pages with some tightening (mainly in Clara’s section). Moreover, the setting is 1927, but doesn’t feel like it always.
Despite having specific sections allotted to the three characters, they don’t get in-depth development. This is where you have to go with the flow and not question the convenient changes and coincidences.
We get a few chapters from Agnes’ POV at random, which gives us a glimpse into her life, past, etc. NGL, if I could kick Daphne on her dainty backside, I would.
The book also shows us what really happened and concludes it with an epilogue (yay!) set some years later. The epilogue is bittersweet but beautiful and provides a good ending to the book. (Don’t be too particular about things, though).
To summarize, No. 23 Burlington Square is a heartwarming three-in-one book about how a decision can potentially impact the lives of people belonging to the house. It’s a story of kindness, second chances, and finding one’s tribe.
Thank you, NetGalley and Boldwood Books, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

****
At one place, Agnes talks about a painting of India and mentions temples with onion-shaped domes. I’m not sure what she means here since our temples don’t have rounded domes. The gopurams are sharper and conical (with pointed or cut-off ends). This is when Agnes is young, so it would be around 1880-1890. Akshardham Temple in Delhi has a sort of domes, but it was completed in 2005.

This book is in 3 parts and tells the story of each lodger had Agnes chosen them to stay.
I really enjoyed each the concept of this book, it is a bit like sliding doors, what would have happened if I had chosen a different path.
I loved each of the stories and getting to know all of the characters and how there stay tuned out.
What I also loved was each character turned up in the other characters stories and it showed how they were all connected and intertwined.

I loved the beginning of this story, so was a little disappointed when the potentially intriguing story of Mercy was changed when Clara was given the room by her aunt. The reason for this became clear as the story progressed and we followed the 'what ifs' of the central characters. The book, for me, had a very satisfying conclusion. I would like to read more books from Jenni Keer.
Thanks to Netgalley.

I couldn’t possibly tell you what made me take a second look at this book. The cover, pretty as it may be, isn’t normally something that catches my eye since it’s distinctly not crime fiction-ish. However, for some reason, I decided to read the book description and immediately felt so incredibly intrigued that I just knew I couldn’t let this one go.

The idea that three different choices could lead to three different paths fascinated me from the get-go. Alternate timelines seem rather science-fiction, don’t they? But ‘No. 23 Burlington Square‘ is anything but. It’s a delightful, engaging historical fiction story of “what ifs”. And its pages are filled to the brim with the most fabulous cast of characters.

Agnes, the landlady, is one of those characters who just steals your heart from the second she arrives on the page. Then there is her niece, Clara. Spirited and glamorous she may be, but to me she was a spoilt brat who annoyed me no end. Stephen isn’t who he claims to be and I didn’t trust him at all. Mercy is quite clearly running away from something, although I didn’t feel it was that hard to discover what that was. And then there are Agnes’ current lodgers : the Smith family in the basement, a Polish gentleman who feels rather lonely, and Gilbert who’s … well, bit weird, really. Every single choice Agnes makes with regard to a new lodger will have an impact on all these characters.

Of course there are secrets to be revealed, but I really didn’t feel like that was the most important part of this story. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the various relationships develop, spotting the differences in the three threads of the story. There is loss and grief, love and heartache, a longing for the past but also hope for the future. And all of it is wrapped up in tenderness and warmth, and it ultimately leads to a conclusion I thought was just perfect.

These characters are all so superbly drawn. They feel real, like they might jump out of the pages of the book and wrap their arms around you to welcome you into their little circle. Through them the reader also learns about the politics in those days, the post-war society of the time, its casualties and the growing divide between the classes.

Exquisitely written from start to finish, ‘No. 23 Burlington Square‘ quite simply had me enthralled. It is a very original and refreshing story, with that little something special that you can’t quite describe. I laughed, I nearly shed a tear (seriously, what the heck is wrong with me?!) and felt rather bereft when my time with these characters ran out. As someone who normally only reads crime fiction and thrillers, the biggest compliment I can give it is saying that I enjoyed it immensely and would quite happily recommend it.

Agnes Humphries has a difficult decision to make. She has a room to let in her old family home, she has three possible tenants, who does she choose? They need to fit in with her existing tenants on other floors.

Does she choose her troublesome niece, a respectable banker or a widow who works in a local department store?

The story is told in four parts, a part for each of the possible tenant and how it would play out if they got the room and the last part is about Agnes herself.

Not everyone is who they seem to be, everyone has secrets they want to keep, will they manage to keep them or be exposed?

1927 and England is still recovering from the Great War. Spinster Agnes Humphries is in need of a new tenant for rooms in her house, she owns the house but cannot survive without 'paying guests'. Three people apply for the rooms and Agnes has to make a difficult decision. Should she just follow family ties and give her wayward niece Clara a safe place after she has affronted her father. Maybe she should take the sensible option and let to Stephen Thompson, a church-going bank clerk. Or should she trust her instinct and allow widow Mercy Mayweather to take the rooms. However all three have there secrets.
I really enjoyed this book. It takes the form of exploring the stories of all three tenants so gives different perspectives and different plotlines which sometimes overlap. There are several serious issues explored, not least the legacy of the War and the increased independence of women, which do not feel as though they are being shoehorned into the story. It's a gentle book and comforting to read.

One house, three possible stories, one terrific writer!
Life is all about decisions, what-if's and this is how you write that kind of book. Entralling, entertaining, moving, tear-inducing, beautifully written. I really do you out of superlatives to to use. You really must read this book!
My thanks to Netgalley and Boldwood Books for the reading copy.

I was so completely surprised by this book, and I loved it so much! It's a lovely historical fiction that plays out the consequences of a character's three choices for a boarder. It was so interesting to see what changed with each character living in the house.
Highly recommend!