Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book, even if has taken me some time to get around to it.
A story of fictional characters based around true historical events between the two World Wars. A bit slow in places but enjoyable.

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

After The Party tells the story of Phyllis, an upper class woman, and her family of sisters. Taking part in the years just before WW2 when Phyllis, newly returned from abroad, gets involved with a new charismatic movement sweeping the upper echelons of society.
I absolutely devoured this book in two days. The rise of the Right, so relevant to today was told in such an impartial way I felt myself actually feeling sorry for Phyllis and what happened to her when she gets involved in The Party.
Involving real people such as Oswald Mosley, this was a really absorbing read.

Rich and interesting book, a little reminiscent of Clare Fuller's Bitter Orange. Might have been more enjoyable were my historical knowledge better, as the politics was very much a backdrop rather than being the focus

I didn't enjoy this book. I'm sorry I feel the genre just wasn't for me and the plot wasn't something that caught my attention personally. There is nothing wrong with the writing or the storyline but it didn't click with me. Sorry.

Beautifully written with a strong plot around World War 2, however it failed to deliver for me as I couldn’t engage in it. I didn’t finish the book despite trying to go back to it a few times.

A thoughtful book about the inter-war years and the sort of people who were sucked into the Blackshirts, and how they felt about it during and after the war.

This book leads you in to an uncomfortable realisation that the Party is the British Fascists. It's a historical novel about the 1930s but also an exploration of family tensions and relations. Beautifully written.

This wasn't the book I was expecting. And although I raced through the middle section I didn't feel that it offered much in the way of plot. It was too meandering for me. I love books set around WWII but this missed the mark.

The Party of the title is Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists party, or the Blackshirts as they were known. It's a period of British history very rarely covered or spoken about, which is a pity because it was a fascinating time.

Phyllis has just returned from a period of living abroad and, having no permanent home of her own, stays with one of her two sisters. These are obviously upper class people, used to having afternoon tea from a silver tea service, dressing for dinner, kids who have ponies and go to summer camp. All very jolly hockey sticks and ripping fun. Phyllis becomes involved in the activities of the summer camps, one of which is run by her younger sister. Initially unaware of the purpose of the camps – indoctrination into Moseley's organisation, she throws herself into it – after all it's good, clean fun in the outdoors with songs and sausages around the camp fire. Even when she becomes aware of what it's all about she is an enthusiastic participant. Eventually things turn sour for Moseley's party and members are rounded up and incarcerated without trial.

This was an excellent read, well written with believable characters; the author manages to evoke the atmosphere of that time beautifully. It's not a pacy thriller, there are no twists, just a good story from beginning to end.

A really wonderful read. Hugely interesting about events and a period of history, regarding the Moseley phenomenon, leading up to and during the War. Extremely well written.

A slow burner which sadly fails to deliver. Whilst there are hints throughout of intrigue and drama, very little of note happens. As a voracious reader of war fiction I felt that this title had much promise; the main character is certainly a warm and inviting voice and the setting is a world lost since the war. However, it simply failed to pick up any pace and fizzled out over the last 20%. I’d not recommend this title.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Books, and the author Cressida Connolly.
Although not the most eventful book, I found this story and it's background incredibly interesting, and it has lead to a lot of subsequent research of my own.
The author is an incredibly talented writer, and the story arc and it's characters were involving and atmospheric.
You cannot help but feel sympathetic towards the main character, and her plight, which is at odds to how you would usually approach an established member of the British Union of Fascists. You see the motivations of the 'party' from another perspective, as appealing to people who just didn't want to go through the horrors of another World War.
You are left feeling slightly torn as to whether you are on her side or not, as you do with the the majority of characters in the novel.
A fascinating read about a topic I knew little about, and as I result I would recommended it to anyone who is interested in the many different stories surrounding this tumultuous period of history.

I loved this increasingly intriguing and gripping novel dripping in historical atmosphere. Stunning. I couldn’t put it down.

A superb book, firmly anchored in the mid-1940s. Connolly has crafted a story about privilege and class, about abuse and power, as well as about being powerless. The protagonist, Phyllis, deserves so much more than she gets. And what is really scary is how loved ones can turn on you, in order to protect themselves.

This novel taught me about the history of WW2 and I learnt about facets of the era I didn’t know before.

A great read all round.

An alternative look at the insidious spread of fascism amongst the upper middle classes in 1930s and 40s. Seen from a different perspective, it revolves around a trio of sisters and their own families slowly becoming embroiled in local and then national politics.
How topical reading about “a Britain for the British” and “taking back control”. Scarily thought-provoking.

This novel tells the story of Phyllis and the repercussions of becoming a visible supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley in the late 1930s/early 1940s. Many people today won't understand the charisma of Mosley and the sharp divisions his politics generated. and it is in providing more background about the reasons behind this that this novel falls short. Nonetheless Cressida Connolly gives us an interesting insight into how some of his supporters found their lives changed forever by a Government totally determined to eliminate any Fascist element from society.

Very well written book and felt very true in style and phrasing to the time it covers. I had sympathy for Phyllis and the story unfolded and allowed you to see how easily it is possible to be drawn in by people and events. I thought that it was well researched and gave me an understanding of that time in history, one which I had not previously read about. Phyllis and the events that befall her seem wholly due to her niceness and desire to please everyone.
My only criticism is that I am so used to reading fast paced stories that I sometimes struggled with the slowly unfolding events.

I found this book interesting as I was not familiar with the Party and what happened to their supporters. I found if well written and I enjoyed reading it.

“Progressive” is not the word anyone would use to describe the politics of the characters in Cressida Connolly’s After the Party. Focalised through the memories of one woman, Phyllis Forrester, the book is a dissection of the Sussex “county set” in the late 1930s, and particularly of the upper-middle-class people who believed passionately in the values being preached by the British Union of Fascists. The word “fascist” is never used; nor are the names of Oswald Mosley or Diana Mitford, as far as I could see, but that is, self-evidently, who and what they are. The book’s marketing is slightly misleading, in that it emphasises a tragic death that occurs after a party held by a local couple, and Phyllis’s sense of responsibility for it; that event does have some significance, but it is not the reason why she goes to prison, which is the other thing that we know about almost from the outset. What Connolly seems to be doing—and it’s not at all clear to me whether she means to do this or not—is inculcating in the reader a sense of sympathy for the average British fascist, the sort of people whose analogues in Nazi Germany were spending these years “just following orders”.

Although I had no idea that members of the Union were interned in the early 1940s without trial or explanation—and although that is a horrifying thought, particularly as many of those imprisoned were profoundly low-level and did little more than file reports or make tea, while far more senior organisers and theorisers were left alone—there is something about the very attempt to make British fascism palatable, or understandable, or even mildly sympathetic, that I pull strongly against. It does not advance the cause of global peace and dignity, in these days, to dehumanise your opponents; I understand that, and I appreciate that Phyllis is so very human a character, slightly weak, slightly bored, clinging to fascism well after it’s fashionable because without it, all the losses of her life will have been for nothing. But I am very wary of what a conservative or right-wing book review page (The Spectator, perhaps) could do with After the Party, very wary of anything that lends itself to the interpretation that we should all hug a fascist. The past eighteen months have made it abundantly clear that Phyllis Forrester’s time is not over and gone; last Sunday, supporters of Tommy Robinson marched in London; and to ask one group of people to try and understand the humanity of another group that refuses to extend that same dignity to them is revolting and absurd. That’s not to say that those adjectives apply to After the Party—it’s an extremely nuanced novel, and literature abounds with protagonists whose personal convictions the reader finds appalling (Humbert Humbert, anyone?)—but it is, without a doubt, a book that could only have been conceived and written in this particular way by someone in a position of significant relative privilege.