The Whalebone Theatre: The instant Sunday Times bestseller

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Here and there are clumps of geometric bracken and the white pompom bursts of wild garlic flowers, filling the air with their profligate scent.

Because I read so much WW2 historical fiction and quite frankly am a little bit burned out on that genre and era, my interest level wasn't as high when it came to the war portions of the story. In addition, I found the central characters a little too thinly-drawn to fully engage my attention, with the possible exception of Jasper who’s unexpectedly portrayed as someone whose outward appearance conceals a surprisingly complex, emotional interior.I very much enjoyed the first half, which is focused on the siblings in their youth, the creation of the titular whalebone theatre, and the various plays they perform. Within the Whalebone Theatre, Cristabel can escape her feckless stepparents and brisk governesses, and her imagination comes to life. In an astonishing debut, Quinn creates an enchanting world and a cast of thoroughly endearing characters whom readers will be sorry to leave behind . However, Quinn never pushes the idea far enough to make the reader catch her breath – and that’s the weakness of the novel, which despite its engaging storytelling cannot match the likes of models such as Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles or Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. The novel begins to veer off the rails, however, when a grown Cristabel, “sick of pushing tiddlywinks about” as a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, becomes a secret agent, wrestling down an SS officer with the sudden physical dexterity of Angelina Jolie in “Mr.

Her vision is so fine and fully realized that it’s hard to imagine her doing anything else—and hard to have to wait to see what that might be. If the front of Taras is the artist-entertainer, the back reveals the lifter-labourer – the graft behind the artistry.

And whilst the childhood story was for me compelling and original, the siblings' WW2 exploits didn't engage me or presented me with an original perspective - I had "already read" so to speak, similar stories and was impatient about developments, which were without exception predictable - ie I predicted what was going to happen, and it did happen. She remembers how, when (REDACTED) was killed, it was at first a shock so immense that it seemed inconceivable. The focus is mainly on Cristabel, feisty and imaginative, though the narrative flits to other characters including her flighty stepmother, Rosalind, and her step-siblings, sensitive Digby and romantic Flossie.