Debutantes by Cora Harrison

For Review: Macmillan
Published: 2 August 2012

From Goodreads: It’s 1923 and London is a whirl of jazz, dancing and parties. Violet, Daisy, Poppy and Rose Derrington are desperate to be part of it, but stuck in an enormous crumbling house in the country, with no money and no fashionable dresses, the excitement seems a lifetime away.

Luckily the girls each have a plan for escaping their humdrum country life: Rose wants to be a novelist, Poppy a jazz musician and Daisy a famous film director. Violet, however, has only one ambition: to become the perfect Debutante, so that she can go to London and catch the eye of Prince George, the most eligible bachelor in the country.

But a house as big and old as Beech Grove Manor hides many secrets, and Daisy is about to uncover one so huge it could ruin all their plans—ruin everything—forever.

I really enjoyed the 1920's setting - Cora Harrison does a great job of bringing it all alive. And I loved the sisters too - their dynamic kind of reminded me of Little Women.

The mystery element to this was really good and I really enjoyed it! While some may work it out before I did, I was surprised at the revelations - I'm very interested to see what happens next and what it means for the sisters. I'm assuming the series will concentrate on a different sister, so I'm looking forward to that.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed the story was written in third person - I much prefer first person so this is probably just a preference on my part - but since this story was still told from Daisy's perspective I just felt that I would have connected that little bit more. But I still got a really good feel for all the different sisters. I loved Daisy, Poppy and Rose (loved her headlines!) were great too, but it took me most of the book to warm to Violet. She came across as too self absorbed for my liking at first. I loved Justin though and was so please at the end!

An enjoyable historical story that will transport you back in time to the 1920's. I'm looking forward to catching up with the four sisters when the next book is released.

Debutantes Blog Tour: Rose Character Profile

As part of the blog tour for Cora Harrison's new novel, Debutantes, she has stopped by to share Rose's character profile...

Rose Derrington is the youngest of the four Derrington girls. She is the only one of them who was not born in India. By the time of her birth, Michael Derrington’s father had died and he was now Earl of Derrington so Rose was born in the magnificent old house, Beech Grove Manor in 1911 and so she is twelve in ‘The Debutantes’. Her mother died when she was four years old so she was brought up by Great-Aunt Lizzie, a very strict old lady who has never moved out of the Victorian Age, either as regards her clothing or her attitudes.

Great-Aunt Lizzie fancies herself as a teacher and in any case the family are too poor now to afford a governess for Rose, so she spends hours in the schoolroom, at the top of the huge house, with Great-Aunt Lizzie teaching her. Rose is a genius for everything regarding English literature and writing. She devours books and knows most of the classics off by heart and she writes wonderful stories. Unfortunately, she is poor at mathematics and this causes Great-Aunt Lizzie to say that Rose must spend long hours at maths and she didn’t bother much with other subjects.

Daisy worries about Rose. She knows that her youngest sister is the cleverest of the family and she wonders whether any money that might come from her film-making should be devoted to paying school fees for Rose rather than buying dresses for Violet’s debutante season.

Rose has a wonderful sense of humour and she continually mocks herself up with her witty remarks and invented newspaper headlines – Delicate Child Force-fed Milk by Brutal Relations: Earl’s Mansion Hides Broken Heart, she murmurs at table when told to drink up her milk.

Rose is not strong and her father worries about her health as Rose’s mother died of tuberculosis and, in those days, it was supposed to be a disease that was inherited. Rose is very thin and she gets lots of colds and coughs so the damp, cold house is very bad for her. (I, as an author, plan to do something about Rose’s health in book 2 of the ‘Debutantes’. I think that the house at Beech Grove Manor and the damp climate of England is not good for her.)

Ambition: To be a writer and a journalist.

Favourite occupation: Writing stories and making scrap books of people from the fashionable world, such as Prince George, and scrap books of lurid headlines, cut from newspapers.

Favourite sport: Like her sisters, she loves riding and she loves drag hunting where the hounds follow a trail of aniseed and the riders follow the hounds. Great fun, rushing through woods, jumping over hedges and splashing through rivers until eventually the hounds find the bag filled with strong-smelling aniseed and sometimes a few treats.
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Thanks Cora!

Debutantes is available to buy now. My review should be up later today:)

Don't forget to check out the rest of the tour - the next stop is tomorrow with Jenny @ Wondrous Reads.