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At 28, Violet's father is beginning to worry she will never find a husband. But every suitor he presents, Violet finds a new and inventive means of rebuffing. Violet is hopelessly unladylike: bold, opinionated, and very strong willed. A match for any man and certainly not marriage material. But, she has other ambitions: to lead an exciting, independent life … with a career … perhaps as a lady typist or a lady detective. We meet Jean Price MP in her early days in office having earned her place in the Commons courtesy of winning a bi-election by a majority of 507. Little seems to have prepared her for the challenges of balancing the life of an opposition MP with a home life while at the same time battling the sneering of the government’s MPs and the sexism of operations within the House, despite this still being the time of Margaret Thatcher’s reign.
Violets whole world has revolved around her mother, from her mother’s guidance in the ways of love to her disappearance which created a big hole in Violets life and turned her life upside down and now Violet is going to take control of her life and find her mother, have some fun and maybe experience love… Violet Hamilton’s mother, Lily, disappeared ten years ago and everyone seems to have given up trying to find her. Now a spinster at the ripe old age of 28, Violet takes it upon herself to:Finally, Violet is trying to decide if her decade-long determination to remain a spinster has been more fuelled by fear than her inability to fall in love. Shortly before she disappeared, Violet’s mother shared gruesome, bloody and pain-filled images of “marital intimacy”. As she tries to decide if her mother’s horrific story is accurate, Violet has many amusing adventures. Her internal judgements and musings are even more amusing. What a delightful read this book was. It's a romantic mystery. The women in this story are strong characters. Violet refuses to get married even though her father keeps introducing her to new suitors. Her mother had disappeared ten years ago, but no one knows if she just disappeared or was murdered. I quite enjoyed this different type of romantic mystery. It's easy to read and quite entertaining. I really liked Violet, she was quite a naive and funny. Violet's father is a typical Victorian character, but he's also quite likable. This well written book is the authors debut. I will be looking out for this author in future.
In 1886, ten years before the story opens, naïve eighteen-year-old Violet’s glamorous mother disappears one evening after an event at the theatre on Hastings Pier. Her body has never been found, not washed up along the coast, no messages received, no sightings.A delightfully quirky and clever book club read, perfect for fans of Dear Mrs Bird , The Maid and Lessons in Chemistry . Violet’s mother went missing ten years earlier. Her father has avoided most any talk of her mother, and Violet has missed her terribly. While she knew her parents fought, she did not think that her mother would simply abandon her. Most suspect that she is dead. Violet is sure that she’s not. So she hires a local detective to look for her mother. Only he’s a smarmy man that treats her as though she’s brainless. Not what Violet expected. Set in 1896 in Hastings, Violet Hamilton aged 28, spinster of the parish, is definitely a young woman born a century too early. She displays the feistiness and determination of a woman born closer to the millenium.
Internal monologue: For much of the first half of the book all we are witness to are Violet's repeated thoughts and internal monologues about her mother, her life and her wish to remain unmarried. The same thoughts, over and over again. Several chapters are pretty much nothing more than just Violet thinking variations of the same things again and again. It was a drag and it slowed the plot down considerably. Violet Hamilton would prefer a profession to a husband, at twenty-seven she continues to fend off the latter, much to her father’s disapproval, but is yet to find the former. In part this state of affairs stems from the sudden disappearance of her mother in 1886 when she was eighteen, and as the ten year anniversary approaches, Violet is determined to find out what happened to her.If you like your historical fiction to feature a sassy, feminist heroine and include a touch of both mystery and romance, then you’ll love this delight of a debut from Hannah Dolby. I enjoyed No Life for a Lady. As always when I read books set in this time period, I get frustrated with the limitations of being a woman during this time. However, it was fun to watch Violet ignore many of the rules and do her own thing. I loved her spirit and her ability to ignore social conventions. Eleanor Oliphant for historical fiction fans, with a dash of detective work and mystery thrown in. I loved everything about it.' Katie Lumsden
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