An Absolute Scandal by Penny Vincenzi - what I thought

Blurb: It’s the glittering eighties and Lucinda Cowper, Elizabeth Beaumont and Flora Fielding feel happy and secure in the power and pleasure of wealth. Nothing could have prepared them for a devastating financial scandal, which turns the boom to bust.

Books by this author are the definition of guilty pleasures. This one was just under 900 pages, or 350,000 words. And I welcomed it, with open arms...

• It was like reading a long trilogy in one book. Because of this, I save these books for holidays, otherwise it would take me more than two months to finish.
• I was introduced to this author by my friend Annabel: she said they were ‘glitzy doorstoppers perfect for holiday read by the pool.’ After trying a few, I ordered almost her whole back catalogue.
• This book has a list of characters at the start – yes, it’s one of those books.
• I learned about the Lloyds Names scandal which I found very interesting. I loved seeing the rich country house, chauffeur driven, children at public school lives slowly disintegrate around the characters as they lost their money.
• The female characters are a joy to read. They were all posh to varying degrees but showed how their on the surface perfect lives actually involve so many compromises: an overbearing mother in law; giving up a career for children, and not being allowed to resume it; marrying a man who’s just a bit too ‘nice’ for his own good.
• People had affairs, someone died, one daughter even decided not to go to uni and became a hairdresser instead! A hairdresser? I could hear the mother’s Lady Bracknell cry at that one.
• Happy and sad bits kept the story bubbling along and me guessing, until an overall happy ever after, with a wedding scene which was enormous fun to read.

I’ve got another one lined up to read on my next holiday, and I’m looking forward to it already!

Have you ever read any books by this author, or similar genres? What did you think of them? I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time

Liam xx