The Briar Club by Kate Quinn is set in a boarding house in 1950's Washington D.C. and follows the stories of the varied women who live there, In an unusual move the house itself is a character in the story, acting almost like a narrator at times. The book gets off to a dramatic beginning with the revelation that there has been a murder at the house but the identities of both the victim and the perpetrator remain a mystery.
This is very much a character driven story , something I personally enjoy as a reader, I loved learning about the various characters and the parts of their lives that they kept hidden as well as seeing how their stories intersect and weave together.
The arrival of a new borader, Mrs Grace Marsh is the catalyst that drives the narrative forward as she gets to know the rest of the residents. who range from a young English mother lodging in the house while her husband serves as a doctor in Korea, to Nora who strikes up a romantic relationship with a gangster despite coming from a family full of cops, and Arlene, universally disliked by the rest of the residents despite or perhaps because of her attempts to fit in. The diversity of the characters was a real highlight, even if they were not all likeable, there was something compelling about most of their stories that kept me reading. The murder mystery was secondary to my enjoyment of the characters but I was definitely surprised by the revelations and the dramatic conclusion.
I really appreciated the author's notes at the end of the book which explained not just the historical context of the book but also in some cases the real life inspirations for some of the characters.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

The Briar Club tells the story of Grace March arriving at the Briarwood House and how the house and its occupants influence her life but of the others as well. We find out more details about each character from their own story/ chapter but also through the eyes of the other ones. I didn't know what to expect of the ending but I loved how the story was ended. It's a story about friendship, hardship and with lovable characters as well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
In 1950, Washington D.C., Mrs. Grace March is the new addition boarding Briarwood house. She slowly starts traditions both good and bad, helps everyone in need one way or another and one by one everybody's story is brought to light. With war, mobsters, pop culture and whatnot, we see the hatred towards communists, Russians and queer people but also oppression of women. But that's not all the story is about. Now, in 1954, there has been a couple of murders at the Briarwood house that changes everybody's life for good.
This was an amazing historical fiction story with very relatable and unique characters written without shying away from the harsh realities of that time. The author takes us to that time seamlessly and keeps us entranced in their world till the end. Every character had depth and contributed so much to the story. One of my top reads of this year.

A great mystery to get your teeth into

I really enjoyed this a whodunit and who did they do mystery neither are revealed till they are boom boom but your left guessing for most of the time. And it's fun guessing in my world that is.

When Grace moved in to the lodgings the mood was somber I guess but she changed all that well all apart from the Landlady Mrs Grum not her real name. The story develops as we discover the story behind the various lodgers and their interesting stories all different and all challenging in one way or another, but exciting to read. Bit of a few mini series all wrapped up in one book. But all comes together in the fact they live in the same building (house) and their reactions are well as you'd understand/expect them to be, from their own experiences. That's after you've got to know them. Young Peter the only male living in the all female environment but he's the son of the Landlady Mrs Grum but he at a young age is the man of the house or rather given all the fixing chores as was the way in the 50's. He and Grace are my 2 stand out characters by they all add to a great storyline.

The back story of Washington looms large in the background as you'd expect in a historic setting the language and culture is as it was as much as I can imagine. For me this is a well written enjoyable read where i managed to lose myself in and escape the world around me for a while, so a great result all round . Thanks Kate I loved this and can highly recommend it to everyone reading my review..

WARNING: it's another unscheduled stop of the unpopular opinion train!!

I'm honestly still baffled this actually happened. I tend to adore Kate Quinn's writing and she is one of my favorite historical fiction authors. I knew that I wanted to read The Briar Club even before reading the blurb, and I was even more intrigued once I did. I fully expected to have another new favorite on my hands, so imagine my surprise when I had a completely opposite reaction instead... The Briar Club is NOTHING like her previous books, and sadly for me not in a good way. This was without doubt a dud for me!

Things started out well enough and I can't deny that I loved the prologue written from the POV of the house and the murder. What a way to start the story with a bang! It made me even more excited to continue reading, but sadly things fizzled out very soon after that. Why? The Briar Club isn't like your usual historical fiction stories, but instead reads more like a collection of character studies focusing on the people living in the Briar house. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not what I signed up for and sadly it wasn't able to keep my attention. Especially since the murder itself mostly seemed like an afterthought instead.

I think part of the reason I struggled so much had a lot to do with the fact that this story is 100% character driven. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, and instead the story mainly consists of the stories of the different people living in the boardinghouse. There are so many characters, and it is very hard to keep them apart as I found most of them rather dull. I think the story couldn't have picked a worse character than Pete to start the story with, as having to spend time inside is head was both tedious and extremely boring. Nora's POV was slightly better, but still not able to keep my attention completely... Especially since by then I was wondering what was really the point of this book and why there was hardly any mention of the murder at all. Like I said before, it seemed more like a collection of short stories rather than a properly cohesive plot.

I was also extremely surprised by just how much I struggled with both the writing style itself and the tone. I usually love Kate Quinn's writing, so it made it kind of hard believe The Briar Club was written by the same author... I know this is mainly a personal reaction though and the majority of the readers do seem to love this story so far. Still, somehow The Briar Club wasn't for me at all, and I confess that I started skimreading long before the halfway mark. If I'm honest, I probably should have simply DNFed it instead... A true shock considering I have given two of her previous books the full 5 stars in the past.

Another cracking read from Kate Quinn . The Briar club depicts the intertwined lives of a disparate group of women boarding in Briarwood House and the people they come into contact with whilst living in the McCarthy era . When the mysterious widowed Grace March moves into the attic room she brings the residents together and turns the dull house into a community despite the protests of the unlikeable landlady. Starting with a body and the police trying to unravel what has happened the characters stories are introduced one at a time until we finally learn the truth towards the end of the book . I was kept guessing until the end as to the identity of the dead.- brilliant .

I thoroughly enjoyed this story which like the vine painted in the house meandered and weaved through the lives of the female residents of Briarwood House. These women all had secrets to share and relationship issues to work out and interspersed with their recipes from the Thursday Supper club it made for an engaging read. This was a little different from the other Kate Quinn novels that I’ve read, but I enjoyed it just as much.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heel all-female boarding house in the heart of the nation's capital, where secrets hide behind the white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbours into unlikely friendships: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother cover gaping inner wounds; police officer's daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball player Bea, whose career has ended along with the women's baseball league of WWII; and poisoning gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy's Red Scare. Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window brewed sun tea becomes a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

Set in Washington, D.C., in 1950. The Briar Clun is a delightful read. The characters are a mixed bunch. An all-female boarding house is broken into. It's told with chapters telling us about one of the women staying at Briarwood House. This is a character driven story. The pace is on the slow side, and the chapters are quite long. The women meet once a week on a Thursday for their supper club. Each woman tells her own story. I liked the author's style of writing.

Published 17th July 2024

I would like to thank #NetGalley #HarperCollinsUK #HarperFiction and the author #KeteQuinn for my ARC of #TheBriarClub in exchange for an honest review.

Set in 1950s in America and it
follows the lives of the all-female residents of Briarwood House, it's full of great characters and is a great read.

I really enjoyed this book. Set in 1950s America, during the height of McCarthys Reds Under The Beds hysteria and the Korean War, this follows the lives of the all-female residents of Briarwood House, Grace March is the latest person to move in, and she has a profound affect on the whole place, encouraging people to be the best version of themselves that they can be. I love that in their own way, they are all strong, principled women, with their own problems. This creates a real idea of how lives were lived at that time, how women were still expected to be wives and mothers, and that domestic violence was almost acceptable and expected. The book is a bit of a slow burner, but I really enjoyed it. I loved most of the characters (we weren’t meant to like Arlene), I particularly liked Pete, who is a young and impressionable boy, with an overbearing, almost cruel mother and a younger sister, so demoralised by her mother, that it takes the whole of the Briar Club, to give her the encouragement to believe in herself. As always the authors notes at the end are really interesting and I’m sure if I was any sort of a cook, I would use the recipes in it too. Add in the point that the book was heading for, and you have a really good summer read.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I could not put this book down.

Great characters, compelling story, and lots of 20th century history woven into the plot.

A great read - get your hands on a copy!

This book tells the stories of a group of woman who all live in a boarding house and the history of how they ended up there.
A slow moving book with that jumped about in timelines with individual stories.
There were some interesting characters and friendships that developed along the way.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins, Harper Fiction for my e-copy in return for an honest review.

Another win for Kate Quinn!

I love historical fiction, in fact I think it is my favourite genre. But what really stands Quinn's books apart from the rest is the protagonists she creates. Not only are her books heavily from a female POV but these women have real gumption! Clever, resourceful and savvy women who have you in their corner cheering them on from the very first page.

Whilst Quinn has diverted from her usual storytelling style, this book is no lesser for it. This is a slow burn, a quiet telling of each woman and how they came to live at Briarwood House and part of the Briar Club. But more importantly, the events that led them to all be suspected of the murder at the boarding house!

A richly layered story, filled with a true feeling of the era which I highly recommend...and for fans, there's a nice little loop back to The Rose Code.

Having enjoyed other books from Kate Quinn, I was sadly disappointed with The Briar Club, as it is a totally different writing style to the previous books I've read by her. It felt more like a series of short stories interspersed with recipes than historical fiction, and I found it very slow going.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

OMG, I'm not sure what else to say! The Rose Code was fantastic, so I knew I was in for something special, and I was right!
Brilliant book!
Set in the 1950s in Washington, Briarwood House is home to a woman and her two children and a boarding house for women and their lodgers.
She's not a particularly lovely landlady, but her children more than compensate for her lack of manners and humanity.
Her guests are a real mishmash of characters, each with a very different backstory, from immigrants with secrets to army wives to women with nowhere else to go.
They all keep themselves to themselves until the arrival of Grace March, an enigmatic woman with an air of je ne sais quoi about her. She slowly builds relationships in the form of The Briar Club, where the lodgers and the children meet in her room for an illicit dinner club while the landlady is away. This time, she thaws the ice that has been present between the residents and slowly builds relationships that help each woman in the end.
It is a complex story, with the POV of each character in the form of a chapter, where we learn their backgrounds and what they may be running/hiding from.
Even the house has its say as it tries to make sense of an incident that brings all the women and other key characters together.
The book is set post-WW2 but amid the Korean War, and that timing dramatically impacts the story. There is fear of communism and spies, as well as racism, that is rife at that time.
It's a book you need to give your time to, too, but once you are in there, you will find yourself turning the pages faster and faster as you become consumed by the twists and turns.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for an ARC.

I loved this book. So many social changes in the early 1950s and they were covered so well in this involved and involving story. Grace March is a great character and I wasn't surprised by the dénoument. Not sure about the necessity for the inclusion of the recipes and I skipped all bar the last paragraph of each one with the recommended company and music. The Author's Notes for Kate Quinn's books are always worth reading and this set are brilliant. As a social historian I loved everything about this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review an e-ARC.

Not my favourite book by this author whom I greatly admire but another wonderful read. Beginning at Thanksgiving in 1954 we learn that a murder has been committed in Briarwood House. Mrs Nilsson runs the boarding house for ladies and keeps a tight ship. However on Thursday she goes out to bridge club and when a new tenant, Grace March moves in, she gathers the residents together to form a club dedicated to eating and comradeship.
Each chapter in the book tells the background of one of the boarders and how they came to be at the place, as well as their relationship with the other residents and especially Grace. One of the characters has struck up a relationship with a gangster, one is a refugee from the Nazis. Another used to play women's baseball, while another is waiting her husband's return from the Korean war. The characters are all very different but they are pulled together and their lives entwine rather like the vine that they paint together over the walls of Grace's room and then down the stairs of Briarwood House.
The book is set agains the background in America of McCarthyism and the red scare, and at the time of early women's contraception medicines. Much of people's outlook is hungover from the 30's depression, the second world war and now the cold war and the book is extremely well researched and presented.
The story itself is quite a slow burn, with long chapters set well before 1954 and then snippets of information about the murder being released. However as the time gets closer the fateful Thanksgiving day the pace increases and becomes more intense as we find out that the actions of one of the group impinge on them all.
This is a story of love (in all its forms), friendship, food and ultimately a murder mystery and I'm very grateful to Netgalley and Team HarperFiction for a chance to read an early copy in return for an honest review.

Kate Quinn has shifted direction in her latest piece of evocative well researched historical fiction, but she brings to it her trademark marvellous rich descriptions, of 1950s America, an era of turbulent change that included the atom bomb, segregation and race, expectations of women, sexuality identity, the cold war, espionage, the death of Joseph Stalin, the Korean War, changing social norms and attitudes, a political climate of fear generated by the despicable bully and powerful thug, Joe McCarthy, crime and police corruption. Helping to bring it all to vibrant life are the fascinating and diverse women that the author creates, based on actual women, a real melting pot, illustrating the desperate poverty, abuse, relationships, familial and marriage difficulties, hardships, and other obstacles endured in the fight to survive and be who they wanted to be.

In a narrative which goes back and forth in time, we encounter the run down Briarwood House, a boarding residence for women, with strict rules, run by the horror that is the mean Mrs Nilsson.who exploits her sweet teenage son, Hammerin Pete, and puts down her young daughter, Lina, contributing to making the child clingy and insecure. Things begin to change for the better when Grace March with her sun tea, arrives, taking up the small room with a hob, and begins to paint a vine that grows and grows, venturing outside with its flowers. The inspirational and compassionate Grace turns a house into a home, strong friendships are formed, a supportive family coming together by choice through the years, with its Thursday Night Dinners, but this loyal 'family' will be tested when the police arrive to investigate 2 murders.

In her insightful end notes, Quinn recounts how she came to put together the different pieces of the story, and how she came up with the women, Grace, the so English Fliss, single handedly bring up her difficult baby, Angela, Bea, her body no longer willing to serve her as a baseball player, a Claire focused on buying a home, archivist Nora, the elderly and bitter Reza, and the struggling to fit in Arlene. There are liberties taken with regard to the timing of certain events in this gripping and captivating historical fiction. This will likely appeal to a wide range of readers, including those interested in this period of history, and the position of women, and foretelling coming of the pill, and the changes in women's lives that would follow. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

The story begins in the early 1950’s in Washington. In an all-woman boarding called Briar House. Where woman keep to themselves. The story tell of the seven women that live there and the problems that they overcome.
When Grace March moves in they start the Briar club and start a relationship between each other. All giving each other advice and cooking for each other. Which the recipes were also included in the storyline. The is several subjects that are discussed in the storyline which Racism, communism the atomic bomb and the list goes on.
I am a big fan of Kate Quinn, and I was looking forward to her new book ‘The Bair Club’. This is a completely different style of writing from her previous books.
This story started well. But then I found that they author packed a lot of different subjects in the storyline that it got to bogged down and it dragged on too much. So much for me personally that I couldn’t connect to the story, and I did wonder the relevance of the recipes in this story. 3 stars from me.

I have very mixed feelings about this one. At times I found it slightly weird and other times I enjoyed it. So different from her usual style of writing. My thanks to netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.