ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Eights by Joanna Miller

The Eights by Joanna Miller will be published tomorrow by Penguin Fig Tree. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.

They knew they were changing history.
They didn’t know they would change each other.

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.

Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights – if she is to succeed.

But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.

The Eights is a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination, courage, and what it means to come of age in a world that is forever changed.

The Eights is one of the books I have most been looking forward to reading in 2025 because of its fascinating subject matter. Set in 1920, the story follows four women who are amongst the first women students at Oxford University.

Dora, Marianne, Otto and Beatrice all have their crosses to bear. It’s challenging enough being a woman in what is very firmly a man’s world, but the spectre of World War I, and all they experienced and lost during the conflict, is still lingering over them.

It is quite clear that Joanna Miller has done extensive research about the lives these women would have led, not only as students but as potential surplus women. The book is rich with detail of day to day life at Oxford, being chaperoned and the endless rules that women were forced to live by. I felt as though I was there alongside them, witnessing their highs and lows. There is a back story too for each of the four main characters. Dora’s and Marianne’s in particular emphasised the immediacy of war during which rash decisions were made and the consequences felt later.

This is a beautifully written and observed debut novel about female friendship, solidarity and emancipation that made me root for the characters who emerged from the horror of the war years to forge new horizons for womankind. It’s inspiring, engrossing and incredibly moving.

Joanna Miller was raised in Cambridge and studied English at Exeter College, Oxford. After a decade working in education, she set up an award-winning poetry gift business. She has recently graduated from Oxford again, with a diploma in creative writing. She lives with her husband and three children in Hertfordshire. The Eights is her first novel.