【 THE BRIAR CLUB 】

Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction (1950s)
Audience: Adult
Author: Kate Quinn
Published: July 2024
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 412 (paperback)

Another sensational Kate Quinn book. I loved every page of this and highly recommend it to Kate Quinn fans (as well as everyone else!) Though it may be somewhat different to her other books, being crime/mystery, it still has that distinctly historical-forward (and feminist-forward) tread to the plot that makes her writing so special.

The book has quite a unique structure, too. It cycles through the backstories of all of the suspects at the Briarwood house as an investigation over a dead body is conducted. As such, there are (more or less) 8 chapters in total (so they’re long!), going through 8 perspectives. A word to the wise, don’t play the game of I’ll-just-finish-this-chapter-before-going-to-sleep, or you’ll be up quite late – learnt that the hard way. Each is broken up with a 2-page interlude written from the house’s perspective, commenting on the events – giving unexpected but delightful personification to it.

The backstories are where the true Kate Quinn writing and the historical elements come in. Set in Washington DC in the 1950s, it’s a super interesting setting for American history. And I can guarantee you it does *not* lack the incredibly interesting niche parts of historical tidbits that Quinn always spices up her writing with.

I fell in love with (most of) the characters immediately (bar the ones you’re supposed to dislike) and found it completely engaging to find out what secrets they were hiding and why they find themselves living in a boarding house as a lone woman in 1950s. This whole thing is a masterpiece in weaving together complex, character-driven plots to build up a very entertaining mystery.

Can’t recommend enough – as always with Kate Quinn!

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Title: The Briar Club
Author: Kate Quinn
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Washington, D.C., 1950

Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, an all-female boarding house in the heart of the US capital, where secrets hide behind respectable facades.

But when the mysterious Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbours – a poised English beauty, a policeman’s daughter, a frustrated female baseball star, and a rabidly pro-McCarthy typist – into an unlikely friendship.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their troubled lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. And when a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.