THE BRIAR CLUB, by Kate Quinn, opened in 1954 in a Washington, D.C. boarding house for women. Briarwood House has seen a great deal during its time, but nothing quite like what it is seeing now. Until the arrival of the charming Mrs. Grace March, the residents pretty much kept to themselves. Soon after her arrival a weekly supper club was organized and slowly a group of strangers became close to each other and what was, at first, to be a temporary place to stay became a home. The horrific events of one Thanksgiving changes everything and the residents are forced to make life-changing decisions and to come face to face with a shocking truth.
The author has created a large and varied cast of characters. There are no stereotypes here. One would have to search high and low for a more eclectic group of people and it is unlikely they would be found. The narrative follows several themes. While the strongest might be the strength female friendships might yield, there is emphasis on common decency, respect and the importance of right over wrong. Washington, D.C. was not an easy place to be during the McCarthy era, and this, too, is an important thread in the story.
There is much that makes THE BRIAR CLUB well worth reading. It is expertly plotted and skillfully told. Immersive and sometimes shocking, readers will be engaged from start to finish. Highly recommended.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.
Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.
Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women 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.
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