I loved this book, deceptively light but draws you in and just as good as her others. Very readable and a great s3nse of place. I love the eccentricity of her characters and will read it again.

Loved the country house setting of Dimperley
The characters were utterly charming, eccentric and so funny and you were totally swept up in the post war era
A fab historical cosy read, with. Wodehouse vibe
Thanks @lissakevans @doubledaybooksuk & @netgalley for the nostalgic funny read

Small Bomb at Dimperley is a social comedy, set in 1945, about a large crumbling country home in a Buckinghamshire village. Valentine Vere-Thissett is a younger son and now unexpectedly a reluctant heir to the title and estate, as his glamorous older brother Felix is now confirmed dead, He comes home to his imperious mother, his uncle Alaric who is writing a very dull family history and Felix's widow Barbara and her daughters, who have also recently come back to England after spending the war in America as evacuees. Zena Baxter has lived in Dimperley for three years with her young daughter, after arriving there as a pregnant evacuee, and being taken on as a secretary.

Much of the humour of the novel comes from the characters struggling with their place in this strange new postwar world. Most of the servants have gone, the estate is burdened with debt, and Valentine's mother, Lady Irene and his uncle Alaric are clinging to their prewar roles and assumptions, keen to continue as if nothing has changed. Valentine is advised that he must marry a nice girl with enough money to save the family estate, but will anyone with the money want him?

The story is wrapped up quite nicely for the main characters of the novel, but I would love to read a follow up about Priscilla Vere-Thissett, a budding author, apparently writing rather disturbing stories at school about flesh eating lizards and anthromorphised dogs.

Thank you to Transworld/Doubleday for granting me a review copy through Netgalley.

A quick and pleasant read by the Sunday Times best seller Lissa Evans

Set in 1945, Valentine Vere-Thissett is coming home from the war where, following the death of his older brother, he is about to become Sir Valentine. He is now responsible for the running and upkeep of Dimperley. Neither something he expected or wanted.
In the book we follow Valentine and other members of the Dimperley household as they manage life, in this strange time of change and uncertainty and try and work out how they can keep the house afloat.

As with Lissa's books, warm and readable characters with a gentle but engaging story.
Small Bomb At Dimperley was released Sept 5th by @doubledayukbooks @transworldbooks

Small Bomb at Dimperley sees Lissa Evans returning to 1940s England with a new novel set just after the end of the Second World War. It’s a standalone, not part of the same sequence as Old Baggage, Crooked Heart and V For Victory although many of the same themes are here. We see the improvisational quality of life, especially for those on the margins (here, a woman who has to make her way through a world that doesn't want to admit she exists - or wouldn't if it knew that she was a single mother). We see people making do, adapting, living the hands they've been dealt.

And we see them triumphing in odd, unexpected ways - even remaking themselves, admidst the societal dislocation and change of the war years and the immediate and postwar.

Also evident is Evans’s ease with the setting and atmosphere as she unfolds her story in a decade that now seems so remote and different. It's only twenty years before I was born, but so much seems strange. It's not just distance in time, but a particular moment. The war is over, the future has not yet begun. A tide of change is poised, an Empire about to be dismantled - but it hasn't begun yet. The country is balanced, many wishing for a return to older ways, others already taking advantage of the new. I say Evans does this with ease, that isn't really fair, it must of course have have taken fearsome amounts of research, of empathy, but to me the story feels very real (as did her earlier novels).

Small Bomb at Dimperley is set in rural Buckinghamshire. It's imbued with the rhythms and incidents of a vanished world: ploughing competitions, knackers’ vans, market days that fill country towns with animals and farmers in damp tweed, a decaying country house, a decaying, cash-strapped gentry. The story follows the minorly aristocratic family which lives in that house and which has, due to an accumulation of deaths, ill-advised investments, and social change, come to the end of its financial road. They now face having to sell up. As a reader I had mixed feelings about that. These country houses and estates were often built on cleared villages, using wealth earned from exploitation abroad. Irene, ("My Lady") the dowager of the family (one of the dowagers - it's complicated) almost invites the thought: serves her right, as she looks down on the lower orders and plots an entitled future by marrying Valentine off to an heiress.

Almost invites it. The redeeming quality of Irene is her tender care for her son, a young man who has a learning disability. The matter of fact moments between the two as they live their days are very touching. And Ceddy - Cecil - isn't a token figure here, he is a vital part of things.

Also appearing are Valentine, the reluctant heir to Dimperley, invalided out of the Army to manage the ruin that has been made of the family's finances and Zena, a no-nonsense young woman employed as secretary to eccentric Alaric. (He's writing a history of the family, which nobody will read). Zena has in effect found refuge at Dimperley, as will Priss and Kitty, Valentine's nieces, back from evacuation in the USA and full of modern ideas about showers and deodorant. Their mother, Barbara, occupies an uneasy space between Irene's disapproval and the adolescent scorn of her daughters.

This is a gallery of smart, opinionated characters though they probably need an entire country house at their disposal or they'd all murder each other by page 2, and it isn't that sort of book at all. As it is, they have some space and Evans honours them all, pulling off what I always feel much be the most difficult trick a novelist can, persuading the reader to be interested in, and even sympathetic to, people who in real life one would avoid on principle. This is how we enter minds and hearts and begin to understand and appreciate others. This is the wonder of a great storyteller.

Small Bomb at Dimperley is a vivid, active book whose pages simply fly by. It has a subtle perspective combining as it does the outsider's critique of a society and a family - Kitty, Zena - the staunch traditionalist's defence of both - Alaric, Irene - and the pragmatism that just wants to keep the show on the road (Valentine, Barbara). It's not a social history, but at the same time, does tell us something about that pivotal time, about the choices that were made then, and about how they have cascaded down the years to influence the county we live in (well, that I live in) today.

There's also romance, a certain degree of growing-up, and a few shocks and surprises.

It is a wonderful read, great fun, and, in an undemonstrative way, rather moving.

I loved, loved, loved this book! Lissa Evans characters are brilliant - well rounded, believable and true to life. I found myself engrossed in their lives, willing them to make good.
The story is set around a once grand house- Dimperley Manor- at the end of WW2. I really enjoyed the way the story describes the difficulties faced by owners of these large and costly-to-maintain estates, and the way society changed during this period. Britain was a very different place to that of 1939, and this fab story reflects these changes. War had cut through class divides and a Labour government was indicative of huge change for Britain. The author's research shines through her writing and gives real depth to her characters and the dilemmas that they face. Can Dimperley be saved, or must it be razed to the ground? A great read. Highly recommended!

Really enjoyed this new book from Lissa Evans.

Post World Water II, Zena is working at a country house, while Valentine returns to his family home to find nothing - including himself - is as it was before. Taking up the reins of life as Sir Valentine, lord of the manor, he follows Zena's ideas to renovate and create a new story for the house and the people living in it.

This is a nice smooth easy read, comforting and warm.

Small Bomb a Dimperley a small and beautifully formed novel about the aftermath of Second World War. The war is over but how do you go back to normal after the world has been turned on its head and what does normal look like now anyway. Val is twenty three and the third son, he was never meant to take on Dimperley, his crumbling ancestral home but when his glamorous fighter pilot eldest brother is finally declared dead after being missing for years Val is quickly demobbed to sort out the mess his brother has left behind. With no idea how to do it and forceful mother still clinging to the old ways Val has to muddle his way through as best he can with the help of Zena his uncles Girl Friday who has a small daughter and an absent husband. This was very good and I chomped my through it in no time. I find this time period fascinating because everything changed massively socially, politely, economically and nobody knew what they were doing. Evan’s tackles it with a light touch balancing humour and pathos in this microcosm of British society we get a snapshot of the many different struggles of all kinds of people after the war. Small and beautifully formed Small Bomb at Dimperley packs quite the punch.

Reached 32% with effort, I like Lissa Evan’s previous works including her children’s books but I didn’t feel enough interest in the characters here to continue reading. Excellent scene setting - I could picture the house, but the main characters didn’t engage me.

Lissa Evans is a highly regarded producer of TV comedies (such as Father Ted), but she has also written a number of excellent novels for adults (and books for children).

She specialises in warm and welcoming gentle comedies, often set during the Second World War or just after - such as her latest, Small Bomb at Dimperley.

The year is 1945, the war has just ended and there are seismic changes underway in the social fabric of Britain, with the incoming Labour government promising to immeasurably improve the lives of working people.

Meanwhile, at Dimperley (a decaying country-house stately home) the upper-class owners are coming to terms with equally seismic changes - though possibly for the worse, in their case. How will the landed gentry cope with the increasing social influence of the hoi-polloi? Can they still afford to run the house in the manner to which they are accustomed? Will they have to gift the house to the National Trust to keep living there? Or will they even (horror of horrors!) have to open up the house and grounds as a visitor attraction for the 'great unwashed' masses? The situation isn't helped with the new 'lord of the manor' returning from wartime service and not really wanting the responsibility - or being suitable for it.

Against this backdrop, Lissa Evans creates a broad canvas of slightly unbelievable yet humorous situations, peopled by a range of well-drawn and memorable characters. She has a knack for turning what could be a sad event - a horrific accident, the death of a pet, and an exploding bomb of course - into a funny piece of writing.

At the book's heart, though, is a tender love story between two main characters from opposite ends of the social spectrum. Other characters in the book - and we the reader - can see that they love each other even they don't yet, and are destined to be together ... but will their love remain unrequited? Read the book and find out!

This latest novel from Lissa Evans doesn't disappoint.

A recommended read.

You can rely on Lissa Evans to give you a reasonably gentle, kind and inclusive and well-researched historical novel (I seem to read historical novels if they're set in the 20th century now!) and this is no different. Once I'd realise it wasn't connected to her previous trilogy, I settled happily into the story of Valentine, who was an ordinary soldier waiting for demob, who clearly would be considered dyslexic nowadays but is seen as the disappointing younger brother of the glamorous Felix, and suddenly inherits Dimperley, a rather extraordinary great house which started in medieval times and has had a bit bolted on in every style (famously having a bigger "Mughal" dome than nearby (real) Sezincote) and is full of dodgy taxidermied animals. Living there are his mother, disappointed in everything he does until he succumbs to a hasty marriage arrangement, and his sister-in-law who is clearly having an affair with a local trader made good, and who is also clearly not dealing well with her two daughters, who were sent to America for the duration and are now demanding such things as showers and their own independence. There are also the redoubtable Zena and her even more redoubtable small daughter, Allison; Zena started off as a patient at the nursing home Dimperley became during the war and stayed on, she loves the house dearly and has been organising Uncle Alaric's rather horrific history of Dimperley.

When death duties and leaky gutters threaten life at Dimperley - which can't be disturbed too much as Valentine's brother Ceddy, who lives with a developmental disorder caused by a childhood illness, doesn't cope well with change - Valentine is far more protective of him than of their horrible mother but needs to come up with a way to raise money. Zena and Valentine are drawn to each other and you do hope they will be united and the house will be saved but it's not at all clear that will happen.

The book has some serious points to make about the effect of war on the population - most of the male characters have some kind of scar or issue, and those who don't feel ashamed and reduced - and of what "duty" means, also about money and keeping these old houses going. It's written in an interesting mix of narrative and letters home / diary entries / bits of Alaric's book / newspaper articles which adds another layer. Two animals die but not gratuitously or in horrible detail.

My review published on my blog today: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2024/09/20/book-review-lissa-evans-small-bomb-at-dimperley/

This was a greatly anticipated book for me as I love both the author's novels and novels set during the 1940s.
It's 1945 and Valentine Vere- Thissett returns from war to Dimperley, the family mansion which is occupied by an assortment of eccentric family and non family members. Dimperley is falling down and the family are in debt so how will Vere- Thissett rescue it?
This was another witty and fun read from the author full of period detail and likeable characters. It is a very gentle read and moves along at a fairly slow pace but is beautifully written and atmospheric. It's not my favourite Lissa Evans novel- Old Baggage is the one I re read many times- but it's still an enjoyable read.
3.5 stars
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

Here we are post war 1945. Valentine Vere-Thisset is returning home, wounded and suddenly the next Baronet. Home is Dimperley, a mishmash or architectural designs, coupled together to make the big house. Requestioned during the war as a maternity home for mothers and young babies, it is now just occupied by his uncle, his mother, Dowager Vere-Thissett, his sister-in-law, Dowager Vere-Thissett, his two young nieces back from spending the war in America and Lena Baxter and her young daughter Allison who has stayed on to help his uncle with his never ending stories of the Vere-Thissett’s and the house.

This wasn’t meant to be Valentine’s life, it was meant to be his brothers, but with the house as a millstone, debts up to his eyeballs, a sister in law in love with someone else, a mother who wants to marry him off for the money and the world around him changing, he needs to do something to save them all and fast .

Opening the house seems a prospect, but it will come with its troubles. Lena Baxter is the woman to solve it all and bring it together, but she it seems has a secret too, like a ticking time bomb, it seems it is about to go off and affect the Vere-Thissetts too.

This book is a gentle read, of adjusting to life after the war, society has changed irrevocably, servants are rare, big houses are struggling and the National Trust is giving the answer to so many of these legacies. Dimperley though is different. And that is what makes the book different.

A book reminiscence of Angela Thirkell, it just took me on a gentle stroll to another time and place and painted a vivid and colourful picture of some quirky characters. Delightful.

Small Bomb at Dimperley is an utterly charming story with a colourful cast of characters and a host of very funny moments. Chief of the colourful characters is Valentine’s uncle, Alaric, who is engaged on writing a detailed – too detailed, probably – history of the Vere-Thissett family, including the origins of their unique role in coronations. It has become his life’s work and the only thing that ensures he’s making any progress and not just suffocating under a pile of documents is the ultra efficient Zena Baxter, employed as his secretary.

Dimperley Manor is a colourful character itself. A hotch potch of different architectural styles, it’s increasingly dilapidated with whole wings out of action, bits falling off the roof and attics stuffed with unwanted furniture and bizarre taxidermy. It’s leaching money and the family are running out of options to keep it going. For the Vere-Thissetts, Dimperley is a burdensome legacy but for others, such as Zena and her young daughter Allison, it’s a sanctuary. It’s going to take a miracle to save Dimperley – or a brainwave.

Alongside the eccentric characters, the humorous goings-on and the efforts to make Dimperley a going concern, there’s a more serious theme about the changes the war has brought and the need to adjust. I have to say this was the element of the book I appreciated the most. Some of the adjustments border on the minor. Valentine’s mother, Lady Irene (who could have come out of a Nancy Mitford novel) is having to get used to not having a house full of servants at her beck and call. She even has to deal with dog poop herself. Her granddaughters are demanding modern plumbing after five years spent in America as evacuees where people do not have to use chamber pots or take baths in lukewarm water and don’t look at you strangely when you mention the use of deodorant.

In the wider world, others are facing more significant changes: jobs and livelihoods that no longer exist, homes that no longer exist, families who have been displaced, breadwinners who never returned from the war. Zena recalls hearing stories ‘of lifelong sweethearts estranged, of soldiers returning to children not their own,of husbands back from the dead to find their wives remarried, of kind men turned nasty, of strong men enfeebled, of abandonment and of reconciliation.’ Indeed, she soon discovers her own future is not going to be as she’d imagined. But perhaps she can find a better one?

Although not my favourite of the books by Lissa Evans I’ve read (that would be V for Victory), Small Bomb at Dimperley is an engaging story that you will have you chuckling one minute and getting rather sentimental the next.

This is one to read again at least twice more.
Zena, her daughter and Valentine reside in the dilapidated manor of Dimperley.
This is set in 1945, Buckinghamshire, and the effects of war are everywhere.
The aristocrats are under cash pressure. As a heir, what will Valentine do?
I adored this book
Conceptualisation 4.5
Plot 4.5
Characterisation 5
Prose 4.5
Themes 4.5
Mood, pacing, tone 5
This is a witty, bright and astute read. I highly recommend it.

This moving and funny book deals with a group of people all trying to adjust to postwar conditions, centred around a stately home. We follow members of the impoverished but titled family, servants, and friends as they deal with personal issues and try to save Dimperley from the bailiffs.

The story is quite definitely a comedy, with a lot of black humour that had me laughing out loud. At the same time it's a sweet story, nothing too demanding but very atmospheric. I really believed in the characters and setting, and I loved the ending. I finished the entire thing in two sittings.

This is my first Lissa Evans so I can't say how it compares to her other books but I would definitely like to read more from her. I recommend this book to fans of light-hearted historical fiction.

I'd like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for kindly providing me with an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book deserves all the hype! Following the Second World War, Valentine returns home to his high society stately home. This is so funny and so off the wall. I loved it. Full of secrets and family drama, it’s a great read

I just love Lissa Evans's work. This book is an excellent addition! I love how well-researched her stories are, they take you right back into the time period in which they're written.

'Small Bomb at Dimperley' is a delightful, funny and poignant novel set in a crumbling English stately home in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

The Vere-Thysset family are facing financial ruin following the election of a Labour government and the imposition of heavy death duties. After the death of his dashing older brother Felix, 23-year-old Valentine finds himself unexpectedly becoming the seventh baronet of Dimperley, but he and his mother-in-law Irene have rather different opinions on what Dimperley needs to do to survive: while Irene still believes that advantageous marriage could be enough to save Dimperley, Valentine is persuaded by his uncle's secretary Zena Baxter to look into opening DImperley up to the public.

This is a gloriously entertaining novel, full of memorable characters whose experiences during the war have informed their perspectives: while Irene and her brother-in-law Alaric sat tight while Dimplerely was requisitioned as a maternity home, Valentine has seen a lot more of the world as a non-commissioned officer and is thus rather more sympathetic to the egalitarian instincts of Attlee's government. Meanwhile, his teenage nieces Kitty and Priss have returned from six years in America with daringly modern views of the world which frequently shock their elders. In amongst all this, Lissa Evans includes a sweet and touching love story as well as some rather moving nostalgic reflections on how not just Dimperley but Britain has irrevocably changed in the aftermath of war; at one point, the housekeeper Miss Hersey notes that 'something vital had changed, like a sprung door that would never again close properly', while Zena elsewhere muses that 'you couldn't give half the population a gun and send them away for five years and then expect their slippers still to fit when they came home.'

Overall, this is a tremendously enjoyable and well-researched piece of historical fiction, reminiscent of Downton Abbey or the novels of Angela Thirkell but with a little more grit reflecting the changing social mores after WW2. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review!

I’ve been a fan of Lissa Evans work for a while now so I was looking forward to reading her latest book, “Small Bomb at Dimperley” and I’m really pleased to say it didn’t disappoint. The plot follows the Vere-Thissett family and staff who live at Dimperley Manor and who are negotiating the changes to their lives after the Second World War. The heir to the manor has been killed in action and his younger brother Valentine is reluctantly heading home from his own wartime service to take up his new position as head of the family. His mother, uncle, and one surviving maid could be seen as relics, much like the dilapidated manor, and have very traditional views about the role of the upper and working classes. His widowed sister in law is struggling with the return of her two young daughters (who lived in the US during the war and have very different behaviours to those of her family) as well as her own wartime secret. And then there’s his uncle’s secretary and her little daughter who are making a life for themselves at the manor but it could all come crashing down around them in more ways than one. Will the manor and the family survive?

As with all of Evans’s books, the characters are vividly portrayed and none of them feel superfluous. They all have an important part in the story or inform the reader’s understanding of other characters. And, as ever, the female characters are particularly well written and relatable. I found myself really invested in the story, laughing out loud at times, feeling heart broken at others and rooting for the success of the characters in each of their plot lines.

I would strongly recommend this book to others and thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this wonderful book.