Sometimes, when I start reading a book, I know instantly that I'm in the hands of a skilled story-teller. Characterization, narration, word-choice, pacing--everything just flows together, creating a world that closes around me. McMahon's The Crimson Rooms is a perfect example of that experience. I got the title from the FB article "Books to read if you like Downton Abbey," and I inter-library-loaned a few on one of our many snow days. . . Several of them were weak outings (lookin' at you, Snobbery with Violence and Withering Heights), but The Crimson Rooms is an excellent novel, combining strong characterization, fascinating historical detail, an interesting whodunnit aspect, and a strong plot. I read it in about three days, deliberately working not to sprint through it just to find out how it ended, and my book hangover when it ended was intense! Luckily, McMahon has just published a sequel, only available in England at this point, but I think I'll indulge myself with a little Book Depository treat for Valentine's Day.

This is a terrific book!

Surprised me a bit.

Such an enjoyable novel, quietly suspenseful and as full of pent-up emotion as hoydenish Americans imagine early 20th century British ladies to be. How many people aren't what they seem? How many ways are there to sacrifice oneself for something--or for nothing? It's a multi-layered story of the struggles between people's higher and lower selves, the classes, and the sexes in the aftermath of the first World War. The most enjoyable novel I've read all year, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys suspense, mystery, pre-CSI detective stories, BBC costume drama, and the Gothic first-person narrative style. So good!

Very interesting mystery with a lot of interesting history.

Very intriguing book. Post WWI novel featuring Miss Evelyn Gifford, a woman lawyer (gasp) trying to get a foothold in a man's world. Seems like she doesn't have a place in the world and still grieving over the loss of her brother. The ending didn't wrap things up like I wanted, but still a good book nonetheless.

I thought this was going to be fluffy and was proven wrong. The book did a lovely exploration of how WWI affected everyone in Great Britain and how the trench warfare changed both the survivors and those left behind. Chock full of how all of this changed the roles women play, I am going to read more by this writer and also pick up Pat Barker. Well done!!

2.5 stars. I think I might have liked this book if I had read it instead of listening to it. I didn't care for the reader at all and it influenced my thoughts on the characters quite a lot. Overall, I had a hard time sticking with this one.

So happy to have found this author. Strong and believable female lead. A great historical novel and a wonderful character study. Can’t wait to read the next one in this series and looking forward to reading the author’s other novels. I think she may just be my new favorite read!

Beautifully structured and written, the plot threads weave and tighten until all the disparate pieces of the story seem part of a sad whole. The observations on life in post World War I London are very astute--we know what people think and believe through the dialogue, dress, daily life and mores. The characters are compelling, neither heroes nor villains, and the way their lives have turned out is dependent on a mix of fate and circumstance.

I got this book as a first-read, and I guess I expected a lame book in desperate need of publicity. Not so! "The Crimson Rooms" is extremely well-written and grabbed me from page one. In fact, I stayed up all last night, trying to finish it.

Our heroine is a female junior law clerk in 1924 London, one of the first few women admitted to the bar. Her entire family is a frozen tableau of grief for her younger brother, Jamie, killed in WWI, and her father, who, heart-broken, drank himself to death. She lives in a dark cloud surrounded by her mother, grandmother, aunt, and two ancient female servants, who are all scraping by on the tiny bit of money left to her once-more-successful family. Her brother's room is still as he left it, and Evelyn Gifford's ground-breaking status as a female lawyer is not lauded within her very traditional family. Still single as she approaches 30, she is seen as an utter failure in female terms.

Thundering into her life comes a young Canadian woman, Meredith, who arrives in the middle of the night with a six-year-old boy, Edmund, in tow. Meredith claims that the boy was fathered by Jamie in a hospital behind the lines in France. Evelyn is mistrustful of the woman, and her family is appalled by her arrival.

Meanwhile, Evelyn becomes involved in two cases, one involving a woman who gave up her children to a charity home and now cannot get them back, and the other a war veteran who is accused of having shot his beautiful bride of only three weeks.

And much to her surprise, a handsome young lawyer, Nicolas Thorne, who is involved in the murder case comes into her life. Although he is betrothed to another woman, the two of them spark immediately.

Evelyn wrestles with several mysteries: Can she help the mother of three children get them back before they are sent off to Canada or Australia? Did the bereaved husband really murder his bride? Is Thorne really in love with her? And what's the deal with Meredith?

*****SPOILER ALERT — READ NO FURTHER TO AVOID PLOT DETAILS*****

The character of Meredith never quite comes together for me. I guess she is supposed to represent some of the brokenness of all who participated in the horror of WWI, but she seemed very inconsistent to me. She was also the source of a heckuva lot of coincidences that weren't explained convincingly by the plot. She felt like a plot device more than a person to me.

I also didn't understand Evelyn's complete rejection of Thorne at the end of the book. It did turn out that he had some involvement in the cover-up of a dreadful crime, but his involvement was largely unwitting. I half expected the sudden huge twist of a Sarah Waters novel, where love is revealed to be nothing more than intrigue and betrayal, but that was not the case here. So, why the need to so utterly reject him?

She was able to forgive her mother's betrayal (withholding Jamie's last letter), but not Nicolas, who never really did betray her. I just don't get it.

And why, at the end, would she move in with Meredith, who seemed to me to be hellbent on her own slow, eventual dissolution?

I guess the author wanted to avoid the usual "happily ever after" of most heterosexual romances, but she didn't do it in a way that felt believable or uplifting. It felt like Evelyn was choosing to define herself as Edmund's spinster auntie, and that didn't really make sense to me.

On the other hand, the writing was strong, and the plot really involved me.

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Note: The version of the book sent to me was supposedly an "uncorrected proof," and yet I found only a very few typos and perhaps one error. (Don't the well-to-do English go to "public schools" rather than "private" ones?) That impressed me because so many modern books come to us riddled with typos and mistakes. Obviously, some care went into its preparation. I am also supposed to note that I received this book via one of Goodread's First Reads, which offers us the chance to enter to win various books.