Abdication - Rambling Readers

preloaded digital audio player

Published Sept. 1, 2012 by Sound Library.

ISBN:: 978-0-7927-9218-5

(1 review)

In a tale set against a backdrop of pre-World War II turbulence in England and Edward VIII's scandalous affair, a fatherless chauffeur shares an undeclared love with a complex Oxford undergraduate, a housekeeper hides her Nazi sympathies and a woman struggles with escalating tensions in her friendship with Wallace Simpson.

8 editions

Heather reviewed Abdication by Juliet Nicolson

Review of 'Abdication' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

To be fair to this book, the crit is misleading and set me off on the wrong foot with it. It gives the impression that the book focuses on the political aspect of the Abdication Crisis, when really it's a romantic novel set against the backdrop of the abdication. Some of the characters ring true (I haven't checked to see how many of the peripheral characters really existed) but the story brings in too many side storylines and commits that worst of crimes, too many co-incidences. The connection to significant events is very laboured - it seems a character can't step out of their door or look out of a window without witnessing a seminal moment of the 1930s, from the Jarrow hunger march to the Cable Street riots.

It's well-enough written and I did want to know what happened, but I wasn't really convinced by the people or their …

To be fair to this book, the crit is misleading and set me off on the wrong foot with it. It gives the impression that the book focuses on the political aspect of the Abdication Crisis, when really it's a romantic novel set against the backdrop of the abdication. Some of the characters ring true (I haven't checked to see how many of the peripheral characters really existed) but the story brings in too many side storylines and commits that worst of crimes, too many co-incidences. The connection to significant events is very laboured - it seems a character can't step out of their door or look out of a window without witnessing a seminal moment of the 1930s, from the Jarrow hunger march to the Cable Street riots.

It's well-enough written and I did want to know what happened, but I wasn't really convinced by the people or their actions. Now I have to find the sort of book I'd hoped to read in the first place.