Don’t get angry.
Get rich.
1922. Twenty-four-year-old Eleanor Mackridge is horrified by the future mapped out for her – to serve the upper classes or find a husband. During the war, she found freedom in joining the workforce at home, but now women are being put back in their place.
Until Eleanor crosses paths with a member of the notorious female-led gang the Forty Elephants: bold women who wear diamonds and fur, drink champagne and gin, who take what they want without asking. Now, she sees a new future for herself: she can serve, marry – or steal.
After all, men will only let you down. Diamonds are forever.
In Poor Girls, Clare Whitfield exposes the criminal underbelly of 1920s London – but this isn’t a morality tale, it’s an adventure for the willingly wicked.
Clare Whitfield was born in 1978 in Morden (at the bottom of the Northern line) in Greater London.
After university she worked at a publishing company before going on to hold various positions in buying and marketing. She now lives in Hampshire with her family. Her debut novel, People of
Abandoned Character, won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and is also published by Head of Zeus.
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My thoughts: The Forty Elephants were a real gang made up of female thieves in 1920s London. The First World War tipped the previous social order on its head and women like Eleanor no longer wanted to stay in their prescribed place. Having worked during the war in jobs that might traditionally have gone to men, she has no desire to be a house maid to a wealthy family.
My great-great-grandmother was in service and apparently it was no picnic. Low pay, long hours, early starts and as many houses didn’t have running hot water and central heating didn’t yet exist, back breaking chores like lugging hot water up the stairs for baths and cleaning all the grates. Fun. Not.
I can see why Nell doesn’t want that life, and the appeal of the Forty Elephants too. Although I’m not criminally minded, seeing other women just like you dressed up, wearing diamonds and appearing to have a great life, well why wouldn’t you want to try it?
I liked Nell, she’s an interesting character, she wants more from life and is willing to do almost anything to get it, a modern women in a modern age, not wanting to be held in place by social class. She does risk getting sent to prison, as many of the Elephants were, but for her it’s almost worth it, just to break out of her expected role.
I enjoyed the snapshot of a different London, the dark underbelly, the way working class people lived, as opposed to the upper classes more often depicted. The contrast between the different stratas of society fascinates me, so this was very interesting and entertaining reading.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 