Gosh, could I be any bigger fan of this author. Kate Quinn’s The Briar Club is a spellbinding exploration of loyalty, deception, and resilience amongst the women living at Briarwood House (boarding house) in Washington DC, 1950. It’s post-war America and McCarthy era politics are pitting neighbour against neighbour.
Mrs. Nilsson runs a tight ship, and she is tight fisted with money. When Grace March moves into the tiny attic room, Mrs. Nilsson—despite riffling through her suitcase uninvited—does not know she has just let the cat in amongst the pigeons. Grace draws the oddball collection of sullen, petty, and privacy-oriented women up to her small room every Thursday for a supper club. She susses out everyone’s problems and with ample grace smooths over tensions, teaches lessons, and is an all-around bright light. It’s like Mary Poppins for adults has waltzed in; and she likewise turns around the fate of the two Nilsson children.
But there are secrets Grace keeps tight to her chest, all the while bring others’ secrets to the forefront. The paranoia of the McCarthy era, the changing roles for women, the poverty and widening gap between rich and poor all play out in the small upper room of Briarwood House.
If you like Kate Quinn, you will like The Briar Club. I’d say this novel is more like The Phoenix Crown than The Rose Code, but it has all the wonderful traits of a Kate Quinn novel: history, strong women, and a deftly told story.