The London House by Katherine Reay

The London House by Katherine Reay

Published November 2021 by Harper Muse

368 pages

Publisher's Summary: 

Uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation.

Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover.

Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.” Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of a coming world war.

Each letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt actually a traitor and Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past? Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed everything.

In this rich historical novel from award-winning author Katherine Reay, a young woman is tasked with writing the next chapter of her family’s story. But Caroline must choose whether to embrace a love of her own and proceed with caution if her family’s decades-old wounds are to heal without tearing them even further apart.

My Thoughts: 

I don't remember where I heard about this book. I almost certainly would not have picked up a book with World War II as a piece of the story with having people recommend it to me. But I made an exception for this one because the piece I read mentioned a connection in the book to the designed Elsa Schiaparelli. I have a degree in fashion merchandising; I studied Elsa Schiaparelli so it was the perfect hook for me. 

Ms. Schiaparelli herself, I was disappointed to find, plays a small role in the book. There is too much going on in this book for her to pay a much larger role. There is, in fact, too much going on here. Reay tries to balance the story line of Caroline Waite's role in the war and her relationship with her family (particularly her twin sister, Caroline Payne's grandmother) with the story line of the tragedy that happened in Caroline Payne's life and its aftermath and the storyline of Caroline Payne's relationship with Mat. I found myself wishing that Reay would have found another way for Caroline Payne to wind up researching her great-aunt's past; we knew, after all, how the arc of Caroline's and Mat's storyline was going to go from the beginning. And all of it doesn't allow as much time for character development as Reay might have been able to do if she'd have had a tighter story. 

Putting all of that aside, I did like the storyline of the relationship between the Waite sisters and how their roles in life flipped over the course of one summer and how one omission changed their relationship for the rest of their lives. I enjoyed the way the pieces of what happened to Caroline Waite were discovered and came together and how they eventually led them to a satisfying conclusion. Some pieces were the happily ever after I expected, others were the ending I felt was more realistic than the happily ever after would have been. 

The Tear Dress, Elsa Schiaparelli,
Wallis Simpson wearing The Lobster Dress

House of Schiaparelli itself plays a bigger role, the place that first draws Caroline Waite to Paris, the place where she first becomes engaged in the politics leading up to the war and where she meets the woman who will drive her to become a spy. It was a good hook that taught me more about Shiaparelli's politics and her relationship with the artist Salvador Dali than what I had learned in college. You know how I love a book that teaches me new things!

Despite its flaws, I think this is a book that fans of historical fiction, particularly historical fiction that focuses on women's roles, will appreciate.