2024 the best house in london 1969 review

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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 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.

Praise for The London House:

“Carefully researched, emotionally hewn, and written with a sure hand, The London House is a tantalizing tale of deeply held secrets, heartbreak, redemption, and the enduring way that family can both hurt and heal us. I enjoyed it thoroughly.”—Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names

A stand-alone split-time novelPartially epistolary: the historical storyline is told through letters and journalsBook length: approximately 102,000 words
Reviewer: Caryl Kane
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Riveting Historical Drama!
Review: Reay has crafted an exquisite masterpiece! I was immediately immersed into the drama. Twists and turns kept me turning the pages. This story will linger long after turning the final page.Recommend to readers who enjoy historical fiction.I purchased a Kindle copy. I have expressed my honest view.

Reviewer: Christine
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Absolutely fascinating novel.
Review: Imagine getting a phone call from someone in your past that changes all you knew about your family roots.Caroline Payne get a phone call out of the blue from her old friend Mat Hammond. He is about to publish an article about her family, and wants to warn her. Mat has discovered her British great-aunt was married to a German during WWII and betrayed her family.Of course, Caroline wants to find out more about her family before the article is published. She makes a deal with Mat to help her investigate in London, before he publishes the article. She ends up at her ancestral home and discovers diaries and letters about their grandmother and great-aunt. They were known as the “Waite sisters.”Will the diaries bring relief to Caroline or something more sinister about their true involvement in the war? There are collaborators and resistance workers. Could they fall into one of those categories?Absolutely fascinating novel.

Reviewer: Frequent purchaser
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Hard to put down
Review: Thoroughly enjoyed this book, always kept me guessing. I stayed up several nights later than I should have because this book was so good.

Reviewer: Becca - Reflections From My Bookshelves
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The London House
Review: The London House is such a good book. It's a split time novel set in the present and in the 1930s. Deep family secrets have haunted Caroline's family for decades. When her old boyfriend Mat calls her up with some news, she is determined to find answers. I also enjoyed the way the story unfolded through a combination of letters and in person. I really liked Caroline and Mat. I enjoyed getting to know them both. I loved learning about the sisters, Caro and Margo. Both had such different personalities. I knew very little about the House of Schiaparelli and the fashion industry before reading this book. Some of the outfits mentioned were so unique.There was a lot of depth to this story. I had a hard time putting it down. I liked how Katherine Reay weaved the past and the present together. She did a great job bringing the past to life for me.I highly recommend this book to my family and friends.I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the publisher. I also purchased a copy for myself. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.

Reviewer: Enthusiastic Reader
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Can the truth lead to forgiveness?
Review: Caroline Payne was named for Caroline Waite, her great-aunt that died in childhood from polio. Mat Hammond, an old college friend of Caroline's, has discovered that her father's aunt Caroline was a Nazi collaborator, betraying her country and family and marrying her German lover. How could that possibly be true? Why is Caroline's father refusing to answer her questions? Caroline carries her great-aunt's name. Shouldn't she know the truth? Does her mother know the truth? This isn't a question to ask her mother on the phone. It's time to see her mother in London. Maybe Caroline will also learn why her grandmother, her father's mother, left the ancestral home to her mother. Caroline's grandmother Margaret was a twin, and the twins called each other Margo (short for Margaret) and Caro. Did Caroline's grandmother know the truth about her twin sister?This novel of WWII historical fiction is compelling reading with dual timelines. Letters and journals of the past open the door to family history, yet rather than answers, more questions need research in historical documents. As a young woman, Caro was in Paris pursuing her dreams by working for the House of (Elsa) Schiaparelli. The letters and journals are not only fascinating glimpses into the sisters' relationship and reminiscences of their childhood but also the world of haute couture in this period and the different opinions of politics of the day.A family secret to protect and heal, yet it only led to hurt and sadness carrying over to the next generation. Can the truth lead to forgiveness? Can a family heal individually and together?Discussion questions are available at the end of the novel.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The London House
Review: I'm not a big fan of letters in a novel, that part was ok, but I vastly preferred the actual story with the modern characters, digging into the past. I enjoyed most of the book, but it didn't make sense that Caro/ Caroline who was spy during WW 2 in her early 20's in Paris, insisted that her bosses, tell her family if something happened to her that she decamped to Germany which made no sense, rather than their ever knowing until it was discovered with lots of intense research around 2021 by family and a friend, that she was a spy, she never decamped to Germany, and was in fact jailed in a concentration camp and killed Xmas Day 1942, but her family in the UK never knew. They absurdly erased all traces of Caroline, no possessions and not a gravestone, that didn't make sense, but the book was enjoyable , but too many letters.

Reviewer: AndiT
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Book That Must Be Savored
Review: This book took me longer to read than usual because it was a book to savor. And I had new floors installed.I have loved all of Ms. Reay’s previous books however I believe this is my favorite!There is so much richness within these pages. For me this book was a time-slip. There were deep wounds that characters had to heal from. Forgiveness and understanding seemed to be the main theme woven throughout.As a journaler I loved reading the letters and diary entries that Caroline and Mat go through to learn about Caroline’s aunts.These quotes are my favorite and have become very personal given a season of forgiveness I am walking through.“I need to forgive Father and Mother for not being who I needed them to be.” Never forgiving him for his humanity.I highly recommend this book!

Reviewer: Daniella Bernett
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An engrossing tale
Review: An engrossing tale unfurled through letters of family secrets, bravery, and an unwavering commitment to standing up for what is right for humanity's sake in the face of evil. The book touches the reader's soul.

Reviewer: Angie67
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Rating: 3,5 starsThis was quite enjoyable but failed to wow me in any way.As this was a historical fiction, I was expecting the usual dual timeline between the present and the Second World War. Unfortunately, this was not the case.The story revolves mainly around Caroline, a young American woman, and Mat, an old college friend. Mat has been hired by the family of a gentleman accused of being a Nazi during the war, to investigate and try and clear the man’s name.What he discovers is that the twin sister of Caroline's grandmother is the woman who eloped with the German officer to Germany, abandoning her English fiancé and family. Caroline's family never mentioned her again and her father still seems to be suffering from this great betrayal. But is this really what happened?Caroline doubts that this is the true story, and with Mat's help she starts reading her grandmother's diary and the letters the two sisters exchanged in order to piece together what really happened.The letters and diary entries were interesting but also a little confusing because they were not always shown in chronological order. This involved constant flicking back and forth on my part to remember what had happened before. I also felt that the story focused too much on the budding relationship between Caroline and Mat and not enough on the two sisters. But I really enjoyed the historical part about the House of Schiaparelli and accurate description of the famous gowns made for Wallis Simpson!I think the story would have benefited a lot if the author had included chapters during the war giving an actual voice to the two sisters and showing us versus telling us their relationship.This book had great potential but unfortunately the story fell a little flat for me.

Reviewer: trina horgan
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I was disappointed, didn’t think it was a great read. To many letters for me