Reviewed by Emma Crowley
A world away from the wealth and comfort of her family home, lord’s daughter Betony Styles has come to love her new life at a London lodging house with Grace and Jess. Selling her beautiful gowns to pay for her rent and rations for the other girls, Betony is determined to do her bit.
By day she works in the factory sewing much-needed uniforms for the Women’s Air Force. At night, air raid sirens blaze – but Betony and the other girls do all they can to help in the hardest hit neighbourhoods, rescuing a precious newborn from the rubble. And she’s head over heels with her beau, brave Canadian pilot Winter Macpherson.
But her father believes duty to her family should come before her duty for her country. He demands she give up playing games and come home once and for all.
To stand up to her father and follow her own path, Betony needs Grace and Jess more than ever. But when Winter disappears, her heart shatters. Together, can the lodging house girls give each other hope even in the darkest times?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Lady at the Lodging House to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Lady at the Lodging House, is the concluding instalment in Natalie Meg Evans, The Wartime Lodging House series. Now is the time for Betony, the lady of the title, to share her story. Up until this point Betony is the one who I haven’t fully warmed to as I was so invested in Grace and Jess’ stories. Betony seemed so different to the other two socially and how she interacts with people. She comes from the upper classes where money is plentiful and she has had the best of everything growing up. Her father, Lord Styles, holds an important position in the Ministry of Supply and welds much power which he loves to exert over his daughter. But times are changing and with the Blitz raging on and war continuing to find ways of hurting good people the trio must band together now more than ever as their love, courage and the sustaining power of close female friendship are what will hopefully see them through the most testing of times.
Readers new to the series need not worry if this is the first book that they have picked up in the trilogy. Each book is easily read as a standalone story and plenty of information as to events that previously occurred is provided so you never feel as if you are continually trying to fill in the blanks which could have distracted you from the current story. The book picks up more or less from where book two left off. Betony has lost her job at Practical Modes magazine which was run by a cousin called Sybil. There had been no option but to shut the magazine down due to lack of funding and scarcity of paper for printing. Betony is at a loss as to what to do. She would readily admit that she had never been trained in anything practical and that money had always been readily available from her parents. But now Lord Styles is refusing to help Betony money wise as she won’t leave London and go be with her mother where its safe in the countryside. I thought fair play to her she has experienced what the war is bringing and knows much more could be in store. She wants to stay and try and make herself useful. She know that she can change and be adaptable and do her bit for her country and not to mention she has slowly built up a friendship with her housemates, Jess, who works at the Ministry of Information in censorship, and Grace who is a nurse. Theirs is a bond that is tested and deeply strengthened throughout the book and it was brilliant to see Betony shedding her old life and embracing a new and heartfelt realistic one.
Betony is determined to prove to her father that she can go it alone and this takes courage in standing up to someone who I viewed as being a tyrant who enjoyed nothing more than power trips and using his status to control Betony in whatever way he could. But as the story progressed Betony becomes more worldly wise, both in terms of her burgeoning romance with a Canadian pilot Winter who is in the air force and also work wise and socially. Her layers of self-indulgence were being stripped away to reveal her true self almost like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis after its metamorphosis. I wasn’t overly enamoured with her before, and I’ll go as far as to say I didn’t particularly like her. I thought she was too la di da and didn’t always treat the girls in the best way possible. But people can always alter and Betony does many things throughout the book to prove that deep down she is capable and does care about people and the bigger picture and in doing so she awakens her own worth, self-belief and tenacity that she can do things that will help herself and many others.
An incident at the beginning of the book has a profound impact on Betony. She goes way beyond her comfort zone and to be honest I wouldn’t have necessarily thought her capable of it. There is guilt but also some pride surrounding what she does and this combined with the actions of her father is what I felt was the catalyst for Betony to stand up and prove to others that she wasn’t just a model paid for standing around in dresses whilst someone drew her. She has in fact character and strength. Yes, there is always and I feel always will be element of stubbornness about her. She lies to Winter, Grace, Jess and her landlady Mrs. Henderson about where her new job is and what exactly she is doing because for a good chunk of the book she feels what she is doing is useless and so far beneath her. It takes some time and for some lessons to be learnt that in fact every little thing for the war effort no matter how big or small does make a big and lasting impacting. She may be but one minute cog in the huge wheel but everyone and everything they do is essential. I enjoyed how Betony’s story developed, the threads of her old life continuing to break and can’t and don’t need to be mended. A new story and venture are being woven and when Sybil plants a subtle idea in her mind I loved how she ran with it and showed that she had ingenuity and that with everyone working together things could potentially have a more positive outlook than when we first meet her at the beginning of the book. I loved how she played her father at what he was at. He believed himself to cunning and people would bow to his commands. But Betony surpassed herself in regard to this aspect.
Regarding romance and how she interacted with Winter, I found this aspect of the storyline frustrating as she lied to him and he was acting quite strangely also. I desperately wanted happiness for her in all aspects of her life as she was maturing and realising the old Betony couldn’t exist any longer. I was intrigued as to how this would all play out. Although this is Betony’s story, Grace and Jess do also feature as they continue with their work and deal with the challenges and turbulence thrown at them on a daily basis in terms of their work and personal lives. Grace’s brother still tries to rear his ugly head and also a certain letter has a significant impact on how her storyline developed. I was desperately hoping the contents weren’t true. For it would have changed everything. Jess is the one out of the trio whose story I have enjoyed the most. It had such substance, emotion and mystery to it. I feel the mystery element and the connections that emerged between the lives of the girls wasn’t quite here in this story and I missed this. I wanted a bit more of this with regards to Betony’s storyline. I found myself at times wanting to read more of Grace and Jess even though there was quite a bit throughout. Jess goes through a rough and heartbreaking time and to be honest I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading and was hoping the author would do something different but that was my wishful thinking and life doesn’t always turn out in the manner in which we want it to.
This has been a brilliant series which I have thoroughly enjoyed, and I am sad to leave the cast of characters behind. They were a fantastic bunch who showed bravery and hope and always kept the wheels in motion. They proved standing up for your rights is vital always and that friendship, love and support will always win out against the bad times. If you love World War Two fiction then I would highly recommend this series.
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