THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY by HAZEL GAYNOR

THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY

by

HAZEL GAYNOR

THE BLURB:

When she secures employment as a chambermaid at London's grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly Lane's proximity to the dazzling guests makes her yearn for a life beyond the grey drudgery she was born into.

Her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she responds to a classified advert and finds herself thrust into the heady atmosphere of London's glittering theatre scene and into the sphere of the celebrated actress, Loretta May and her brother, perry.

All three are searching for something, yet the aftermath of the Great War has cast a dark shadow over them all. A brighter future is tantalisingly close- but can a girl like Dolly ever truly leave her past behind?

THE REALITY:

Well, this certainly had the ability to touch me! Bought from a charity shop in Filey whilst I was in Yorkshire, I started it there and finished it a week later, in floods of tears. It was (spoiler alert!) Loretta's predicament that got to me the most, and I liked the way her demise from illness towards death and its accompanying physical effects was subtly nuanced, and appeared to be perfectly researched.  Dolly's "Dolly Daydream" nickname also got to me (for reasons I'll keep to myself, but let's just say someone once called my that and I didn't live up to it, feeling rather a let down).

Oh, the roaring twenties- such a colourful time in history; when women were coming out of kitchen and creating lives for themselves in a riot of preceding Art Deco colour! I actually own one of the books the author used as inspiration, and of course I'm always going to love the references to the fashions of the day; the designers, the fabrics used and the glittering accessories. The author doesn't forget, however, that these events took place in contrast to the devastating backdrop of WWI, and I like how she addresses the fact that few came out of that experience unscathed.

I enjoyed reading about rebellion, apparent in Dolly wanting a better life for herself (and who can blame her? Even one-hundred years later people are still very much defined by their circumstances at the time of their birth) but also in Loretta and Perry, who didn't want the life their upper class (and apparently cold) parents wanted for them. We also got a sad taste in finding out that things haven't changed in as much as some men still think it's okay to take advantage of those women they perceive as “beneath” them, and this was brutally described on more than one occasion in this book.

This had a wide variety of characters, each with a different story to tell and a different path they chose to take (or had bestowed upon them) and finding out about their wants and needs kept the story moving along. I also loved the way the author made The Savoy come to life, both for the upstairs and downstairs residents, and enjoyed how actual fact was interwoven with fiction.  I liked the way plenty of "telling" is involved- I don't get the obsession with "show not tell" as you need both in a story and besides, a little telling can move the story along without wasting words.

A very long novel that I flitted through quickly- it was elegant in its conception, but I would have liked the author to drop some hints as to what happened in Dolly's, Perry's and Teddy's lives before that ending jump 50 years into the future.