The Glittering Hour is set in England during the 1920s and 30s, in the time leading up to WWII. Lawrence Weston is a painter, Selena is coming of age, and the two fall in love. They live in vastly different worlds but they still dream of being together when tragedy strikes. The book was a great read and I rated it 5 stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel taking place in the 1920’s and 30’s. There were some aspects of the storytelling that reminded me of Kate Morton’s early novels (which I loved). It is a rather tragic story, but with hopes for happier days ahead.

I started this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to rate a book that I wasn't able to finish.

Absolutely mesmerized by the story between a young girl, Alice and her mom, Selena. I love how the story goes back in forth in time.
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Selena’s life is full of parties, and drinking and she makes it in the papers, but not favorably. Scandalous for her parents.
Selena meets a young man, Lawrence who is not part of her inner circle. They have an undeniable connection. Selena struggles with her privileged life and what is expected of a woman with her background.
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I love how this story unravels. Alice is left with her uncaring grandparents as her parents set out on an adventure. It’s obvious that Selena loves her daughter Alice. She sends her letters and sends her on a journey to discover her past. A unique and beautifully written story. I cannot wait to read more from this author.

Really enjoyed this historical fiction. With a plethora of WWII books, I like it when authors focus on other time periods. This one was set in those sort of in between years, while the world still recovered from WWI and the groundwork for WWII was forming, though most people had no idea to anticipate it. I can see why Book of the Month featured this book, and would definitely recommend it myself.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is historical fiction set in England just prior to WWII, a time when the young people partied hard and acted like the world was their oyster. It was a little slow in places, but the story made up for it.

4 stars.

I wasn’t as enamoured with this book as others. I found the first half painfully slow. It was almost a DNF but I kept on hoping it would get better. Although the plot did pick up midway through, it still lacked something to completely draw me in. I will agree that the ending was heartbreaking and I can see how other readers might get emotional. There was also a good twist in the plot that I didn’t see coming. However, the writing was off for me and I was never able to fully connect emotionally to the story. I think this is a book that many will enjoy and probably shed tears over but just didn’t work for me. Thank you to publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Lovely summer read! I love a good romance story in the afternoon. It's so well written, and I love the characters! Nicely done period piece.

Classic Iona Gray. Well written. Well developed characters. Excellent story line.. This novel captured my attention from the first chapter and did not let go until the final page. Five stars.

I'm sorry I left this on my TBR list for so long!!! The author takes you on a wonderful journey of lost love, family and pain from loss set in both 1926 and 1936. It is so beautifully descriptive that at times I felt I was watching a movies instead of reading. Loved the characters, the story and the struggles. Such passionate love makes your heart ache, loved it all!

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this wonderful story.

Loved this book. Iona Gray's writing is beautiful. Her characters were both likeable and believable.. story was a little predictable but well worth the read. Thank you Netgalley!!

This book takes place in both the present and the last, from different perspectives, building the story of Selina, rich society girl, and Lawrence, poor common artist.

What I Liked:
The core of this book was really good. The love story between Selina and Lawrence, how she came to be married to someone else, what the future holds. The overall plot was really interesting and beautiful.

What I Didn’t Like:
The book was so slow. There was more description that dialogue or action, and by the time I got to about the 40% mark I wasn’t interested in reading anymore. I wanted to know what happened, but I didn’t want to read each word to get there, I ended up skimming through, pulling out the dialogue to piece together what happened in the end.

This book was fine. The storyline had promise but I wasn’t a fan of the execution. I wouldn’t read it again.

The Glittering Hour swept me away to England and put me in the heart of the main character, Selina. Although she is known as a “Bright Young Thing”, which epitomizes the young socialites of the times, she’d rather follow her own path and escape her life of riches.

The book is told in two timelines, Selina’s in the 1920s and her daughter’s, in the early 30s. Selina recounts her life through letters to her daughter, that include clues and treasure hunts so Alice can understand how she came into being. Alice was sent with her nanny to live at her stern and critical grandmother’s house. Her spunk and curiosity of the world will touch you deeply. I adored her.

The writing is detailed, lyrical and pressing, which allows the reader to be part of everything. There is an epic love story woven through the book that had the right amount of tension, happiness and sorrow. The mother/daughter relationship between Selina and Anna is at the crux of the book. It’s a book about choices, taking the easy way or the hard way. It’s about loss, that will make you weep. The war has touched everyone and is a cloud that hangs over the characters.

I’ve never read Iona Grey before and I understand that her first book was fantastic as well. In looking her up, I learned that the “Bright Young Things” were actually a vivid part of English society. It’s apparent that the author did an immense amount of research in crafting this story.

Note: I listened to the book, rather than read the copy provided by the publisher. The audio version was extremely well-narrated.

This book had about 5 instances of ugly cries for me. It's a beautiful exploration of love in all its forms and the lingering effects of trauma. Also, as someone owned by a black cat, the Cartwright storyline just destroyed me. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the chance to review a digital ARC and provide my unbiased opinion.

Iona Grey’s The Glittering Hour wrenched my heart, squeezed it, and wrung it out to dry. This is a very sad book, a hopeful one, but nevertheless, sad. At the same time, despite work deadlines, it kept me in its grip and I stayed up to finish it into the early morning, something I do rarely these days. If you love Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White, and our very own Canuck, Clarissa Harwood, you’re going to love Grey’s novel, as long as you’re willing to forego their more-often-than-not HEAs.

The novel opens, as the best novels do, with a naked sleeping couple in 1926. We don’t know who they are, yet we sense love and desperation. Selina Lennox, aristocratic bright young thing, darling of the then-tabloids, lover of cocktails, jazz, and wild, nocturnal shenanigans. And Lawrence Weston, dark, handsome, talented, an artist and photographer, of humble means, lowly origins, cultured, urbane, working-class. Lovers. Tragic lovers, we sense. Fast forward to 1936 and the narrative shifts to Alice Carew, eleven-year-old daughter to Selina née Lennox and Rupert Carew, presently living with her maternal grandmama and grandpapa in the Lennox family estate, Blackwood Park, of former grandeur and still the site of much of the Lennoxes’ cool snobbery.

The novel then proceeds on alternating narratives lines of 1926 and 1936. In 1936, Alice is staying with her grandparents while Selina travels to then-Burma with Rupert to assist in his ruby-mine business. Selina’s letters to Alice comfort the lonely little girl. They set up a game for her: Selina’s letter plant clues to be found in the manor that will tell Alice the story of “how you came to be”. As Alice puts the clues together, the reader does too – by following the dual-decade-narrative to its heart-breaking conclusion. As for 1926 Selina: bright young things careening nightly on London’s streets, one careless collision with a stray cat … and Selina is an entire other world when she abandons her friends to rescue the cat and encounters a handsome young artist. The cat provides a wonderful frame to the novel, as it concludes with another feline, a kitten for Alice. I haven’t spoiled too much here and everything that happens between one cat and the next is rich in narrative complexity and a profound call to “live properly. Bravely. Love wholly.”

(For those who love a romance connection, Iona Grey was “India Grey”, supreme HP author. If you haven’t read her HPs, do! I loved them and hope she’ll return to an HEA-driven novel some day.)

The power of Grey’s Glittering Hour lies in how much I cared for her central characters. I was in agony for their happiness. In particular, I was moved by wee Alice: quiet, thoughtful, and so very lonely; her grandparents, cold and lacking in affection; her Aunt Miranda and Uncle Lionel, indifferent, even resentful; her spoiled, peevish cousin, the five-year-old Archie ruins every scene he’s in. Alice draws, wanders the garden, misses her mother. Selina’s love and connection show through in her letters and the clues she plants for Alice to find who she is, explore Blackwood, engage her soul and mind and achieve respite from missing her mother. Thankfully, Grey provided Alice with some faithful, loving servants to make up for what her family, minus her mother, lacks: Polly, the faithful servant who is the fulcrum upon which the novel’s mystery is built and resolved; Patterson, the gardener, who shares both with the youthful Selina and later Alice, a love of how the natural world succors and provides important lessons about life, death, and regeneration, how to tend it and how to enjoy it. While much of Glittering Hour had me sobbing, where Alice ended up gave me much-needed satisfaction.

Now we come to the lovers, Selina and Lawrence. Grey builds them on collective sorrow, shared by English between-wars society. Selina’s wild young thing life hides a deep sorrow, despair even, and an inability to confront it, over the death of her beloved brother Howard at Passchendaele. As for Lawrence, braver than Selina, a man who was too young to go to war, but suffered the loss of his sister and mother to the 1918 Spanish ‘Flu, and grieves them still. In each other (and there is a stupendous scene at a costume party where they reconnect after the initial “cat” encounter that involves van Gogh’s Starry Night painted on Lawrence’s bare chest), they find a searing attraction, a kindred spirit, a deep-seated connection beyond appearances and class.

Lawrence loves deeply and lives bravely; Selina is more fragile, but her strength, gained by hard-earned loss, shines through in the end. I don’t want to give away anything of the novel, but I will say that there is resolution for Lawrence and Selina and much hope and love for Alice. My romance wishes for Lawrence and Selina didn’t come through and for that, I forgive Grey. In its place, a beautiful book, like the “glittering hour” itself, a time and place when life shines with hope and love (though it cannot “stand still,” like Marvell wrote, Lawrence and Selina make him “run”) and though the betrayal that is inevitable in every romance does not find resolution in an HEA, the narrative arcs towards hope, a kitten, and the happiness of a little girl. With Miss Austen, in Grey’s The Glittering Hour, we find “no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” Emma.

Iona Grey’s The Glittering Hour is published by Thomas Dunne Books. It was released on in December 2019 and may be found at preferred vendor. I received an e-galley from Thomas Dunne Books, via Netgalley.

I wanted to love this book so so badly, but it unfortunately was a DNF for me.

Really liked the concept of it but unfortunately this was one really slow burn I couldn't stick with.

If you're looking for a historical read that has a treasure hunt, drama, family secrets, and even more secrets, this is the read for you!  It is truly an emotionally strong read that some of you may need tissues for.  For someone like myself who isn't the biggest fan of historical fiction, this was such a lovely tale it has left me a little empty since finishing.

Oh my heart, this book stole my breath away and I didn’t want it to end. I sobbed through the final 50 pages, and it was so worth it. Iona Grey did such a tremendous job of developing characters that we truly cared about - and I'm looking forward to reading her previous novel now.

Review can be found here; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3114881171

I received a reviewer copy of The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey from the publisher St. Martin's Press from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

What It’s About: Selina Lennox is a young society girl who hasn't quite gotten over her brother dying in the war (WW1) when she meets a penniless artist, Lawrence who she begins in an affair with in 1925. On a dual timeline in 1936, we meet Alice, Selena's daughter, who is living away from her mother for a couple of months at her grandparent's home, uncovering the truth about her mother's history via Scavenger Hunt.

What I Loved: The mother-daughter relationship and ending of this book is really quite beautiful. Alice is a young girl who is greatly loved by her mother but isn't as accepted by her other family members. Seeing Alice uncover the truth for her mother and grow as a child is what makes this book and find love and support outside of her mother is lovely.

What I didn’t like so much: I wasn't really crazy about much of the story, I didn't really love the romance aspect, I didn't buy the chemistry between the characters and I also didn't feel like I had a sense of place within history which was frustrating as a historical fiction reader.

Who Should Read It: People who love mother-daughter relationships. People who love stories of outsiders.

General Summary: A lovely story of a young girl uncovering her mother's past amidst a confusing and frustrating present.