Kate Quinn’s writing is impeccable! Her stories just flow and carry you along.

I adored the idea of a house as a narrator and loved the parts written in this way. Who would be more invested in solving a murder than the house where it took place?

A brilliant cast of characters all flawed, all well rounded and all who you will want to know more about.

A brilliant read that looks at the roles of women, children and spies. A unique and gripping tale with exceptional writing.

Another triumph of a book from Kate Quinn. I am in awe of this author, she writes so brilliantly on so many different topics and types of situation. Her stories are very much character - driven, which I love. . Even minor characters are fully rounded, and have their place in the narrative. I felt I knew every player by the end of the book.
I loved this book, set in 1950s USA in a boarding house, full of women and family. It gripped me from page one to the end. The murder mystery is so cleverly woven through it, but it is the women, and the dynamic amongst them that is central to the story. I can’t wait for the author’s next work. Highly recommended.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

This is a moving and superbly written story set in the backdrop of Washington in the 1950s. Cold War tensions are high with the paranoia of the McCarthy era at its peak. Into this historical context, the author gives us both a thriller and a beautiful story about a boarding house which breathes and feels alongside its inhabitants. The stories of Pete, Lina and their dad, the enigmatic, warm Grace, and the other women in the boarding house are skilfully woven throughout. I felt so many different emotions as I read this compelling novel.

What a beautiful book which has something for every type of reader.

I would strongly recommend this book for Kate Quinn fans or those lucky enough to only just be discovering her!

2 people have been murdered but that's not important right now, because we need to learn about the characters of Briar House five years previously up until present time before we find out more about that...

The wholesome 1950's America isn't usually my favourite timeframe in history, but Quinn picks her characters and their backstory so well, I was hooked pretty much from the start. Each and everyone of them was fascinating, having a very different and very colourful story to tell.

Briar House is a nondescript house for women in Washington DC. The landlady is the typical nosy, grouchy, intolerant type that needs careful management. Then there are the tenants whose lives start to interchange through the Thursday night supper club.

Quinn focuses on each character in turn so that we can appreciate, in detail their very individual and differing backgrounds, their struggles and challenges - many of which they try to keep hidden. But Grace the listener and feeder of the house, who implements their supper club, quietly draws them out of themselves; for everyone needs to the support of somebody else from time to time - don't they? A trust of sorts builds and a kooky community develops within and quietly beyond the walls of that house. Flawed personalities find they have strengths who can also help others when the need arises. The stories are cleverly intertwined with lesser known historical people and events of the time, from the development of contraception, to the atom bomb, communism, spying, warfare, racial intolerance, sexuality and more.

Without spoiling the enjoyment you will get from learning about all these characters, it embraces tough living with human spirit, the perils of revealing who you are, with living your best life while you can and above all the virtue of kindness. A thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking rich story, that allows you to enter the lives of people you wouldn't normally experience. The character development is a joy and escapism a pleasure. Enjoy the afterburn these characters leave you with.

Grace March woman of mystery. Grace moves into a boring, dim boarding house for women in 1950s Washington. All the residents go about their business in a quiet and business like manner that is until Grace opens her door to all and rocks the foundation. A sad, happy 5 star must read.

Absolutely brilliant. I love the historical settings of Kate Quinn’s books. This one is in Washington DC in 1950 in an all female boarding house. You get caught up in the lives of all the women who reside there as well as learning more about the time. An excellent read. .

I love Kate Quinn's books and this one was just as brilliant as her previous ones. Set in Washington DC in the 1950s going back and forth over a 4 year period, each chapter tells the story of each woman in a boarding house run by the unpleasant Mrs Nilsson. Very clever and full of twists and turns, with a murder mystery at the centre of the story, great characters and so well written, this is Kate Quinn at her finest.

I loved, loved, loved this book!!

Initially, I was hesitant to read it because I am somewhat weary of anything involving politics at the moment. However, I decided to give it a try, and I am delighted that I did!

The book introduces a plethora of remarkable characters, each grappling with their own unique challenges. My personal favourite character is the house itself, which often had me in fits of laughter.

I also loved the recipes that are scattered throughout the book and will definitely try some of them. Even more special is the fact that the recipes are paired with some amazing songs.

This book just proves that Kate Quinn is one of the best historical fiction writers out there!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

This literary mystery is set in the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during the McCarthy era. It evokes the prevalent blame culture and prejudice as it explores the lives of a group of women living at a female boarding house. I like how the author gives the house a distinct character and emotions as the women bond and share their lives. I like the characterisation, the secrets, the evocative historical setting vibrant with cultural, political and social details, and the uplifting conclusion.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Kate Quinn is noted for her skills of depiction of particular times and places and ‘The Briar Club’ is no exception. Set in 1950 in a Washington DC modest women’s boarding house, Quinn swiftly introduces the reader to a range of characters, including the owner and her two children.
This women-focused exploration of the McCarthy era is full of authentic cultural and attitudinal details of the time. Quinn focuses on the politics of the day alongside the changing role of women in society. Whilst the opening of the novel would appear to be presenting us with a murder mystery, there is a great deal more to challenge the reader than the mechanics of a ‘whodunnit’. Although none of the characters are as fully developed as the protagonists in her previous novel, ‘The Rose Code’, this is still a very involving narrative which tells us much about female friendship, whilst exploring why the boarders make the choices they do as they battle against sexism and racism in post-WW2 America.
My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Briarwood House is a boarding house for women in Washington. Run by the fussy and awkward Mrs Nilsson, most of the work is done by her put-upon son, Pete, alongside his neglected sister, Lina. When a new tenant arrives the house begins to change and the women for a solid group where their secrets gain support. However, tragedy is around the corner and when it happens Briarwood House needs to decide where the priorities are.
This is an amazingly complex book about post-War America and the lives of women masquerading as a female-orientated novel! Each character takes on a persona that is believable and which also reflects on different strata of society, each is completely sympathetically drawn and, reading the author notes, expertly researched. I absolutely loved the different tales and the complexity of the ending.

I do love reading historical fiction that allow me to learn something new about the history of the period in which the book is set and at the same time entertains me with the story. The Briar Club does both. Its set in the America of 1950's when the Cold War was still in it's initial phase and the Red Scare combined with the trial and subsequent execution of the Rosenberg couple led to mass paranoia about communism and the possible infiltration of Soviet spies in government agencies.

Against this backdrop we have the story of half-a-decade old boarding house called Briarwood house, which is home to women-single, working women, women whose husbands have been deployed to remote warring zones, old widowers with an embittered past and one mysterious woman who brings this motley group of women together during their weekly once Thursday dinners. Slowly we learn about the past and their secrets with each chapter and every character seems distinct. The book opens with a murder in the boarding house. The house(a character in the chapters where the murder is narrated) has come alive, after being ignored for so many years and wants to protect its residents from the gruesome consequences of this incident.

The story is very character driven and my favorite Briarwood boarders would definitely be the mysterious Mrs. Grace March whose is capable of nudging out secrets from others using her charm but at the same time is a closed book, hardly revealing anything about herself. And Claire who in the start I didn't like very much but towards the end, I was rooting for her so much and hoping that everything turns out fine for her. This is a marvelous book with excellent storytelling and definitely going to be one of my top favorites of this year.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this book.

I know very little about this period of history in the US (as a British person) so enjoyed learning about life in the US alongside a cracking story about a group of women living in the same boarding house.

This is a long book but well worth a read. I’ve been trying to decide who my favourite character was but I enjoyed finding out about all of them. Murder mystery meets historical fiction with a dash of gangster drama, a punch of romance and and a set of recipes.

It's the height of McCarthyism and Briarwood House is a boarding house for women in Washington DC, run by the (miserable) Mrs Nilsson with the help of her teen son Pete. Grace March moves in to one of the rooms at the top of the house, a woman with an eye for seeing what other people need and asking the right questions, and gradually the house transforms. But everyone is keeping secrets, and as the book opens with a dead body, soon those secrets will come out.

It took me a little while to get into this, the story unfolds with the individual stories of the women living in the house, how they come to be there and what's happening in their lives. Interspersed with each story are the recipes for the meals they bring to Briar Club - the Thursday night supper club that Grace starts from the tiny kitchenette at the top of the house - which is a nice touch. As always, there are some stories and some women who are more appealing than others, each story has a tie to the issues of the day. MacCarthyism/Communism is a big issue, but there are also stories which deal with domestic abuse and the development of the Pill, as well as the role of women in society, lesbians, issues around race and segregation, gangsters and how corrupt politicians. That's a lot, but it hangs together well without a sense of "here's X, her story is solely this issue", and the plot of Grace's own story is a good one. Despite finding the start slow, I did get really into it in and was definitely keen to know who the dead body was and how it was going to resolve!

Such a great story about women boarders in a house in Washington DC during the 1950s. I love Kate Quinn's books and this one was no exception.

What a book! Set in 1950s Washington DC, it follows the stories of a group of women at a boarding house. The characters were cleverly done, so distinct and well-researched - in fact the whole book was so well-researched and I learnt a lot about this period in history. I liked the story's structure which each character getting their own chapters (although why start with Pete?) and the addition of the recipes was a nice touch. Throughout the book, the question of the murders keeps the suspense although in some places the story dragged a little bit, like the baseball but that could be because I have no clue about that sport.
Overall,, a brilliant book that I was sad to finish.

This is a solid, if slightly quirky, delight. Having read and enjoyed The Rose Code, I was expecting superb scene setting with spot-on historical details deftly inserted without being too heavy-handed. I was also expecting well-depicted characters, some of whom weren’t necessarily all that likeable initially, but as the book progressed I’d increasingly like and find sympathetic. The Briar Club magnificently delivered on both counts. The post-War grind, where many are still having to scrimp, is beautifully portrayed in this rundown boarding house. As is the increasingly febrile political atmosphere, where Senator McCarthy is whipping up public opinion against the Red Peril, which according to him have been inserted within American society.

What jumped out at me is the racism and sexism so embedded within American society at the time, it is casually accepted by most. It’s the young Englishwoman, Fliss, who is startled at the official segregation of the time – though she also acknowledges that black people in England are also regularly discriminated against. And it goes without saying that all the young working women are severely hampered by the prevailing attitude that their chief occupation ought to be getting a husband and becoming a housewife. Bea spent WWII playing baseball in the professional women’s league, organised as a morale boost for the folks when most male players were off fighting. Unfortunately, she’s had a bad knee injury but has been looking forward to returning once she recovers – only to discover that now the men have returned, the funding for the women’s league is swiftly drying up.

While each of the women have their own chapter, the book revolves around Grace March. She takes the small, inconveniently shaped room right at the top of the house. Not only is it a slog to get to, with cheap, barely adequate provision – the walls are a hideous dark green. Grace doesn’t care. From her room, she has a wonderful view from her sunny window – a spot where she makes a beverage she calls sun tea. She also gets to know everyone in the boarding house and finds all sorts of ways to undermine the drearily long list of petty rules decreed by the sour, tyrannical landlady.

All this we learn throughout the book – which starts with a bang. Briar House itself is also a narrator, when two bloody murders occur in a single evening. We get to find out that one of the victims has died when their throat was slashed, while the other – discovered much later after the police arrived – has had their skull caved in.

The rest of the story then goes back some five years earlier to fill in details running up to that fateful night, giving us details of each of the boarders and their reasons for ending up at Briar House. Despite the very dramatic opening – this isn’t a whodunit filled with foot-to-the-floor action. It’s far more of a slow-burn story that relies on the tension produced by the shocking opening sequence to keep readers turning the pages. But it’s so much more than a clever whodunit – this is a book celebrating and exploring friendship. While there are a couple of romances, they aren’t the engine powering the narrative. It’s all about a group of people who find themselves in third-rate accommodation for a variety of reasons – and how they increasingly come together and help each other to overcome the obstacles in their way.

The main way that Grace coaxes her fellow boarders to become more friendly is by providing meals on Thursday evenings, when the landlady is out playing bridge. Food is a symbol for fellowship and caring throughout the story, to the extent that at the end of each section, there is a recipe. We also watch the culinary efforts of Lina, the landlady’s young daughter, constantly encouraged by the boarders, despite the fact that most of her early efforts are verging on the inedible.

If there is a murder mystery, then the denouement has to be satisfying. The main mystery that powers this story is the identity of the victims. We know there are two people found murdered at the house right at the start of the story and as we get increasingly invested in all the characters, I began to dread getting to the part when we discovered who they are. It’s cleverly done and works really well, as it’s also entangled with finding out exactly who Grace is and why she’s driven to nurture the people around her with food. This is a cracking story, full of vibrancy and positivity, alongside the darker overtones inevitable within the genre. Very highly recommended for fans of historical murder mystery tales. While I obtained an arc of The Briar Club from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
10/10

Kate Quinn is one of my favourite authors and her latest release, as usual, didn't disappoint me.

The structure of the book was very nice. The story starts in the present, where a murder has been committed in Briarwood House, an all-female boarding house in Washington D.C., then it goes back to the past. Each chapter from the past follows a different woman living in the boarding house.

As usual, Quinn did a fantastic job with her characterization, and I really liked all the women. They were not only great individual characters, but I also liked how, through them, Quinn explored different aspects and situations of the historical period. For example, Reka, a Hungarian immigrant, or Bea, an ex baseball player.

My personal favourites were Nora and Fliss. The first I admired and respected a lot not only for her passion and dedication to her work, but also for how she handled her relationship with Xavier. As for Fliss, I sympathized a lot with her struggles as a new and basically single mother. She had to grow her daughter alone because her husband was away in the war, and, despite the fact she appeared perfect and put together on the outside, she struggled a lot on her inside. I really appreciated her representation, and the reminder that motherhood is hard even for those who seem to best handle it.

As for the story itself, I always found it very interesting and I was never bored, mostly because, as I said, I enjoyed following all the characters. The mystery angle was also quite well done, and I was extremely curious to see what had actually happened. In the end, I was totally happy with how everything turned out. All in all, another fantastic read from Kate Quinn. If you haven't read her books, you are seriously missing out!

What a treat to read. I thoroughly enjoyed this well plotted novel. All the characters were so well drawn and the author had obviously done her research. and this gave a brilliant sense of time and place . I loved that the house even had a voice as well. I will definitley be reading more Kate Quinn novels.

The book is set in Washington DC, it’s Thanksgiving 1954 and someone has been murdered in the top floor room – and the house itself is telling the story. Each chapter than covers what’s happened in the last 4 years, from the point of view of the family who own the house and then each of the residents in turn. The chapters stand alone as a story of an individual – and all included a recipe for that person and a song to listen to when enjoying the food – it was really clever and special.

The house then gives a few more clues as to what atrocity has just happened all cleverly linked to the back story you’ve just read. Each of the stories intertwines amazingly – and despite being a huge pedantic geek I didn’t spot a single inconsistency (well done Kate Quinn and your editor!)

Some of the characters are more likeable than others – but they make for a rich tapestry of a book. It also taught me quite a lot about that era that I didn’t already know.

I don’t want to give any spoilers – but it is brilliant! The best book I’ve read in a while that’s for sure. The writing is exquisite, eloquent and evocative – just like Kate Quinn’s previous book. It feels like an awful lot of time, care and research has gone into each of them.

I also adored that the final section, once the story itself is finished, goes through each of the characters and explains who or what they were based on – and how much was fact, fiction – or a mix of the two. I remember at the end of The Rose Code spending lots of time Googling – so this was super helpful. I was also delighted that I’d spotted the ‘Easter Egg’ that one of Fliss’s English relatives was a character in The Rose Code – gold star to me!!

A huge thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for my ARC.