ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Girl with the Suitcase by Lesley Pearse

The Girl with the Suitcase by Lesley Pearse is published by Penguin Michael Joseph and out now. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.

London, 1941

When Mary meets a glamorous stranger named Elizabeth she realises their lives couldn’t be more different.

Elizabeth is beautiful and charming, about to set off on a dazzling adventure to Ireland where she’s inherited a grand house.

Mary, shy and meek, has nothing to look forward to but the dreary life of a maid in Hampstead.

But when an air raid forces them to take shelter underground Mary’s life is suddenly changed forever.

After waking up in hospital, injured but alive, the nurse mistakes her for Elizabeth and hands over her suitcase with Elizabeth’s money and tickets to Ireland inside.

This is Mary’s chance to escape the hardship of her life and start afresh.

Will she take it and what could go wrong?

I look forward every year to a new Lesley Pearse book and I’m never disappointed. Her latest is The Girl With the Suitcase which follows the life of Beth Manning…except Beth isn’t quite who she says she is. Just prior to an air raid, Mary Price meets Elizabeth Manning. When Mary is misidentified as Elizabeth, she takes on the latter’s identity and a new life in Ireland, which is everything she has always dreamed of.

Like every Lesley Pearse book, there’s a strong heroine at the heart of the story who overcomes a difficult past or situation to triumph in her life and Beth is no exception so don’t think that she sounds like a heartless person. I loved following her from London to Ireland, away from uncertainty and towards a new home and a new set of circumstances. I’d call it a slice of life story as it’s set over the course of the Second World War and portrays the fortunes of the main character during that time.

I found this book a delight to read and really looked forward to picking it up. There’s a lot of sadness for Beth and some horrible things happened to her but I knew that somehow she would be ok and I absolutely loved the ending. Once again, Pearse pulled me right into a story and put me there with the characters that I so enjoyed spending time with.

International bestselling author Lesley Pearse has lived a life as rich with incidents, setbacks and joys as any found in her novels.

By the mid sixties she was living in London, sharing flats, partying hard and married to a trumpet player in a jazz-rock band. She has also worked as a nanny and a Playboy bunny, and designed and made clothes to sell to boutiques.

It was only after having three daughters that Lesley began to write. She published her first book at forty-nine and has not looked back since.

Lesley is still a party girl.