Review - Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner blog tour @StMartinsPress #AustenprosePR

Today is my stop on the Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner blog tour. I'm so excited to be a part of this tour for Natalie's latest novel, Bloomsbury Girls a sequel to The Jane Austen Society. This novel like her debut is absolutely unputdownable. Read all about this fabulous novel and my review.
Enjoy!

Title: Bloomsbury Girls: A Novel
Author: Natalie Jenner
Genre: Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: ‎St. Martin's Press (May 17, 2022)
Length: (368) pages
Format: Hardcover, eBook, & audiobook
ISBN: 978-1250276698
Tour Dates: May 2-29, 2022

PURCHASE LINKS

PRINT & DIGITAL BOOK

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB
AUDIOBOOK
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | GOODREADS

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls.

Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans:

Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiancé was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of grievances--most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the Head of Fiction.

Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she's been working to support the family following her husband's breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between duty to her family and dreams of her own.

Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. Now she's working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans to remake her own future.

As they interact with various literary figures of the time--Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and others--these three women with their complex web of relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow.

 

My Macmillan Audio Review:

Bloomsbury Girls
Natalie Jenner

 

After the rave reviews and success of The Jane Austen Society the Divine Ms. Jenner has done it again! Bloomsbury Girls is smashing and this brilliant author deals with office romances, coworker conflicts while promoting girl power. The novel begins right at the beginning of 1950 a few years after The Jane Austen Society ends and stars one of the main characters from the book, Evie Stone, fans will remember the maid who catalogued the entire Chawton Library.

The backdrop is impeccably researched and gives the audience a genuine armchair experience of 1950s post war London still battle scarred but healing. Ms. Jenner has also outdone herself with the easily read, flawless flowing narrative that gives readers that fabulous fly on the wall view of the read where they know things that characters are scratching their heads about. But don’t think there aren’t any AH HA!, moments because there are plenty. There are also some really famous cameo appearances plus some memorable returning characters from the previous novel.  Speaking of the characters, they are superb, some larger than life, some who just think they are and some that will pull at heartstrings but all imperative to the telling of this tale. And of-course it’s the Bloomsbury Girls, Evie, Grace and Vivien who are the real stand-outs and will steal the show along with reader’s hearts. Fans of WWII fiction, literary fiction, women’s fiction and stories staring strong female leads with unsinkable attitudes will stay up all night to finish this amazing work of fiction.

English actress Juliet Stevenson is a superb choice for the narration of this marvelous work of fiction, she gives life to every character from the most minor to the three female stars. Her voice is precise and understandable and while telling the story delivers the right emotion at the right time.

Looking for somewhere to belong after losing her fiancé to the war, Vivien Lowry a secret aspiring writer, hoped Bloomsbury Books would be that place. But she soon learns that like everywhere else in post war England women who during the war were considered essential workers now five years later found themselves, like her, pushed once more into the background.

Married (unhappily) with two small sons Grace Perkins took the job as secretary to the GM at Bloomsbury Books to help make ends meet which now with her husband practically unemployable is a godsend. The job also gives her time away from her husband’s recent more volatile mood swings and for the female camaraderie in a male dominated workplace and world that she finds in her good friend Vivien’s company.

Little did the women know that the winds of change had just arrived in the form of unassuming Evie Stone from the small village of Chawton England, a recent and one of the first women graduates of Cambridge, one of the founding members of The Jane Austen Society, a girl who simply wants to conquer the world. With her impeccable research and a little help from her friends she just might know the way do it. Now all she has to do is jump all the hurdles that life and men have thrown at her.

 A MESSAGE FROM AUTHOR NATALIE JENNER

Dear readers, I am immensely grateful for the outpouring of affection that so many of you have expressed for my debut novel The Jane Austen Society and its eight main characters. When I wrote its epilogue (in one go and without ever changing a word), I wanted to give each of Adam, Mimi, Dr. Gray, Adeline, Yardley, Frances, Evie and Andrew the happy Austenesque ending they each deserved. But I could not let go of servant girl Evie Stone, the youngest and only character inspired by real life (my mother, who had to leave school at age fourteen, and my daughter, who does eighteenth-century research for a university professor and his team). Bloomsbury Girls continues Evie’s adventures into a 1950s London bookshop where there is a battle of the sexes raging between the male managers and the female staff, who decide to pull together their smarts, connections, and limited resources to take over the shop and make it their own. There are dozens of new characters in Bloomsbury Girls from several different countries, and audiobook narration was going to require a female voice of the highest training and caliber. When I learned that British stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson, CBE, had agreed to narrate, I knew that my story could not be in better hands, and I so hope you enjoy reading or listening to it. Warmest regards, Natalie

AUDIOBOOK

Narrated by esteemed stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson, enjoy the full unabridged edition of Bloomsbury Girls. “Stevenson delivers the satisfying triumph at the end with perfect polish.” —AudioFile Magazine

AUDIOBOOK EXCERPT
https://soundcloud.com/macaudio-2/bloomsbury-girls-by-natalie-jenner-audiobook-introduction

ADVANCE PRAISE

"Jenner follows The Jane Austen Society (2020) with another top-notch reading experience, using the same deft hand at creating complex, emotionally engaging characters [against] a backdrop chock-full of factual historical information... Fans of Christina Baker Kline, Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff [will] appreciate this gem." —Booklist (starred review)

"An illuminating yarn... Fans of emotional historical fiction will be charmed." —Publishers Weekly

"Bloomsbury Girls is an immersive tale of three women determined to forge their own paths in 1950s London. Jenner has proven to be a master at spinning charming, earnest characters and paints a vivid picture of postwar England. I wanted to stay lost in her world forever!" —Stephanie Wrobel, internationally bestselling author of Darling Rose Gold

"Bloomsbury Girls is a book lover's dream, one of those rare reads that elicits a sense of book-ish wistfulness and nostalgia. Jenner has created a colorful cast of characters in a story about friendship, perseverance, and the ways that determined women can band together in a man's world. You're in for a treat." —Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary

"In a London still reeling from the ravages of World War II and the changes war has brought to English society, three young women take their futures into their own hands. With Bloomsbury Girls, Natalie Jenner has penned a timely and beautiful ode to ambition, friendship, bookshops, and the written word." —Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library

“In post-war London, Bloomsbury Books survived The Blitz until Vivien Lowry, Grace Perkins, and Evie Stone set off their own bomb on the stuffy all-male management. What ensues is the most delightful, witty, and endearing story you will read this year. Natalie Jenner, bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, proves that she was not a one hit wonder. Like Austen, her second book is even better than the first.” —Laurel Ann Nattress, editor of Jane Austen Made Me Do It 

AUTHOR BIO

Natalie Jenner is the author of the instant international bestseller The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction and finalist for best debut novel, The Jane Austen Society was a USA Today and #1 national bestseller and has been sold for translation in twenty countries. Born in England and raised in Canada, Natalie has been a corporate lawyer, career coach and, most recently, an independent bookstore owner in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs. Visit her website to learn more.

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