Review: Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure: A Novel

Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure: A Novel by Rhys Bowen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Its 1938 and Ellie Endicott is shocked when her pernickety husband Lionel asks for a divorce to marry his pregnant (much) younger girlfriend who is expecting a baby. Refusing to roll over and obey his every command the way she has throughout their marriage, Ellie forces him into a decent financial settlement and decides its time to live a little. Lionel never wanted to go abroad, too many foreigners, so Ellie decides to go to the South of France. Much to her surprise, she has company, the caustic spinster who makes everyone's life a misery with her strictures about ironing the church altar cloth who has been given only months to live by her doctor, and Ellie's cleaner Mavis whose husband is a little too free with his fists after a few beers. In a fit of bravado, Ellie decides to take Lionel's beloved Bentley.

En route the ladies pick up Yvette, a young Frenchwoman who was thrown out by her father when he discovered she was pregnant. Initially the travelling companions are a motley crew, but gradually the ice thaws, until the Bentley breaks down in a small fishing village outside Marseilles called Saint Benet. After a few days in Saint Benet the ladies decide to make it home, especially when Ellie finds an abandoned villa on the cliff top which rumour says was given to a famous opera singer by her aristocratic lover.

But their idyllic life is soon to be overtaken by events on the world stage.

I've seen books by Rhys Bowen many times but this is my first read. I did enjoy it, but I felt it glossed over the war years in soft focus, everything was a bit like skimming stones on a pond, not much detail and the cursed insta-love. I enjoyed, and I think it would make a wonderful Sunday evening mini-series, but it could easily have been set without WW2.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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