A beautiful sweeping novel that starts as an upper class family saga with some wonderfully layered characters and relationships and turns into a wartime adventure, whose characters only grow in depth while the second world war unfolds.
I wasn’t quite expecting the wartime side of the story, because I went in fairly blind and I was initially attracted to this for the theatre element, but the human and material history of World War Two has always captivated me and so it was only a bonus to find this novel going into the lives of various members of the Seagrave family during the war.

We initially meet the main protagonist Cristabel Seagrave as a little girl, growing up in the stately home of Chilcombe, loving above all adventure stories. When she finds the washed up whale on the beach, she stakes her claim immediately, and eventually its bones become the backdrop for many a theatre production, of which Crista is the director.
Rather than be the star she prefers to organise, to direct proceedings, and her practical nature serves her well later in life when the war breaks out and she rises to new challenges.

This book has the rare quality of being both plot and character-driven, and great attention is paid to detail in all areas to build the world first of Chilcombe and later the wider world and the events that take place, but also the varied cast of the book, who evolve as years for by, thanks to changes in circumstances, responsibilities. We see the kids grow up and come into their own, and while the quirky hangers-on to the family like nomadic artists, socialites and eccentric poets add a lot of interest, it is the Seagrave children who are the real drivers of this story. Cristabel, Flossie and Digby, endearing kids who all become resourceful young adults .

I learnt a lot through this novel and liked how the author was never patronising, and also left a lot of things unsaid and implied.
It was quite a long read, which gave me time to really get to know the characters, and I devoured the last quarter of the book in one sitting.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

I found this a little disappointing as the premise promised wasn't delivered on. The characters were okay but i felt they were all a little flat and underdeveloped. The writing could have been better as i really struggled to stay invested with it but i just found it kind of dull and not very gripping. I feel as if the writing had done a better job of keeping me hooked, i might have enjoyed it more.

It's very much a slow burn of a book. I'm midway through right now and will leave this for a little bit and then return to it. The characters are engaging and I'm enjoying the family saga set in the interwar years.

A slow burn family saga, that explores the depth of what it means to be family. Our three siblings have very different paths to follow but always seem to find a way back to each other.

Thought provoking and compelling, this tale will stay with you long after you've finished reading it.

Unfortunately this was a dnf for me, I struggled to keep track of the growing list of characters and decided it wasn't for me. Have rated in the middle as I think the writing was good but it wasn't the story for me.

I really did not engage in this book at all. I just feel that it fell flat. I did try and go back several times but it just did not hold my attention.

When 9 year old Cristabel finds a dead whale washed up on their beach, she is determined to claim it for herself. With the help of her younger siblings, and roping in friends and relatives, she sets up an outdoor theatre, using the whalebones to frame the stage. Their productions become renowned as each year they get more spectacular. The war strikes and everything changes.

The Whalebone Theatre is an entertaining read, if a little slow moving at times. Cristabel is a strong character who sparks the reader’s interest from the beginning. Her interactions with her siblings works well, and the way all three grow and mature is delightful.

A great read.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I’m not sure what per se was the one thing that prevented me from loving and enjoying this book. It’s more likely that it wasn’t for me at that particular moment. I hope to go back to it at some stage.

Thank you as always for the arc copy x

DNF I chose to read and review this ARC in exchange for an honest review as a palette cleanser from my normal thriller type genre. but I just found it to be too dry and whimsical and a bit hard going. I'm sure others will love this Downton abbey type novel but it wasn't for me.

Hugely enjoyable read.
Well developed characters, incredibly imagined scenes, vivid, well, vivid everything!
I'll admit I'm typing this review about a year after reading, but suffice to say I remember it as a great little book. And frankly the fact that I remember it is in itself high praise! Recommended.

A beautifully written book.I really enjoyed reading this.

Thanks to publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read

Beautiful cover and story line, however sadly I didn’t find this as gripping as I hoped it would be and didn’t manage to finish it. Definitely one I want to come back to though!

I have never read anything by Quinn before and was intrigued by the plot. I felt as if this novel was at a very slow pace. It also had a lot of first world problem vibes from Christabell growing up with a very odd family. Unfortunately this was too slow for me and didnt live up to the intriguing potential plot.

The Whalebone Theatre - Joanna Quinn

Well this book is just outstanding, I have written so many little notes on what I loved, it’s difficult to get them to coalesce into a proper review. So you will have to excuse me if it gets a bit rambling!

Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor.
But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.
Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.
But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want.

There are so many things to love and be captivated by in this book. Firstly, the setting; the house at Chilcombe is old and crumbling, as the house creaks into life, I felt I was walking it’s wonky corridors too. It still has the glamour and parties we associate with the time, but like an old dinosaur lumbers on.
It puts me in mind a bit of Swallows and Amazons, kids adventuring in their minds and IRL whilst the parents seems oblivious to them, there is a freedom for them and yet there are constraints too, what they are born to do or be. Girls to be wives and boys to be heirs.

Secondly and most importantly for me are the characters. I just felt I could see this book and the characters with an immediacy that does not often happen when reading but I was IN this book straight away.

The 3 year old Christabel is an absolute delight, I love her stomping about with a stick and hiding her little treasures in her pockets and under her pillow. She is brave, obstinate and inquisitive and is just joyous - one of my favourite written characters ever!

‘she keeps fragments of various sticks, several stones that have faces, and an old picture postcard of a dog owned by a king which she found under a rug and named Dog.’

Betty and Maudie, the lady’s maid and nanny are wonderfully realised and as with minor characters are often far larger in their influence than you think.

‘Maudie, why are all the best characters men?’ Maudie closes the book with a clump. ‘We haven’t read all the books yet, Miss Cristabel. I can’t believe that every story is the same.’

We are also introduced to Flossie ‘the veg’, who develops a quiet strength and fortitude that holds the siblings together.

‘When the vegetable baby was christened (Florence Louisa Rose Seagrave – Cristabel’s suggestion of ‘Cristabel the Younger’ sadly ignored)’

And with Digby, the youngest, a gang of three they make.

Whilst the actual adults are wrapped up in their own selfish lives, the children put on plays in their Whalebone a theatre and as time progresses we see them grown and age with their inner turmoil and fight to adulthood and beyond.

‘She is small and hard as a periwinkle. Just an empty shell taking her pain from place to place, hunched over it like a miser.’

As a reader I found myself lurching from laughter to heartwrenching conversations- the one between Christa and Digs before he goes to war really got me.
So much happens in this book, it is a masterpiece in historical fiction, really powerful, drawing you in, connecting you to the characters and entwining you with their fates.

‘If she could look her loss in the face, what shape would it be? What colour? Bright blue. Sky blue. Hope blue. A love as big as the sky. How bright and fierce it is. How impossible to extinguish. To think of it gone feels like screaming.’

I think it is the characters as children who I can’t forget and I’m still thinking about. They are raw, honest and truthfully written, they are what I remember of childhood and what I have seen in my own children; they are bright and funny and just come alive. For this alone I would give all the book prizes but the whole book contains such beautiful writing, it is richly evocative and compelling and is fully deserving of all the accolades it will surely receive.

✩✩✩✩✩

I had heard about this book locally for months before it was published and it lived up to all the hype.

It is a cleverly and beautifully plotted story- perfect for fans of Mary Wesley, Elizabeth Jane Howard and Lissa Evans. The Dorset setting is a huge draw and the characters perfectly observed and executed.

The Whalebone Theatre is a family saga set in the interwar years and the story of Cristabel Seagrave and her siblings Flossie and Digby. This is a well written novel with all the ingredients I usually love in a historical family saga- a quirky family, a grand house and an interwar setting. It's a descriptive and atmospheric read with a stronger second half. However sadly, the pace was far too slow, and I never became engrossed in the plot or the characters. A novel I longed to love but struggled to finish.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

Quirky, charming and creative. First half was slightly more engaging than the second, but overall a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I decided to read The Whalebone Theatre after a slew of positive reviews and comps to some of my favourite books; I'm powerless to resist anything compared to I Capture the Castle. It tells the story of the Seagrave family from 1919 to 1945, centring mostly on the children: adventurous Christabel, sweet Flossie and charming Digby. This is a book I feel like I should have loved, given all the ingredients: slightly madcap family, interwar period, posh people in the English countryside, lots of artists, a literal theatre set up by the children. But there was something about the first half of the novel, set mainly between 1919 and 1928, that just didn't really grab me – that felt a bit lagging, nothing special. None of the adult characters were particularly interesting or novel and I found the children's exploits a bit boring and, sorry, but the Seagraves were nowhere near as intriguing as the Mortmains. The second half is much better – and I don't think that's just because I love reading about the Second World War. It's plotty, it's atmospheric, it's heart-rending (I cried on a jam-packed tram in Mexico City), it's brimming with wonderful historical detail about Paris in the 40s and the French Resistance and what it was like to live through war. It made me fall in love with history all over again, which I think is the mark of a great historical novel. To be honest, I wish the novel had been the second half only; I don't think the backstory was strictly necessary, and it detracted from my enjoyment of the very very good war story. Three stars for the first half, maybe, and 4.5 for the second.

When I started reading this I was extremely excited. Sadly it didn’t capture my heart immediately so I put it down.

Several (six in fact) months later I came back to it and was swept away in the children’s theatre adventures. The book then dragged on once war arrived, skipping forward with little reason to do so. These parts added very little to the story and diluted it somewhat.

Once Crista entered the resistance, it again became interesting, before losing my attention once more, until the last section.

I am sure the final version is shorter, with the key parts of the story highlighted. Overall, I did enjoy it, but my rating is a touch generous. The book is well-written, but struggles to find its identity. Certain characters develop well; others do not and this is a shame, considering the importance of all three children at the start.

There are a few unanswered questions at the end, but perhaps that is deliberate as war is so unpredictable.

A good story, but unnecessarily long.

- 𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓁ℯ𝒷ℴ𝓃ℯ 𝒯𝒽ℯ𝒶𝓉𝓇ℯ by Joanne Quinn
Immersed in Dorset with the Seagrove family has been a wonderful read. The family are ‘upper middle class’ and we follow their lives through the 20’s to the ending of world war 2.
Christobel , Digby andFlorence grew up with different parentage half brothers / sisters but were bound together by the family and all the hangers on in the society they lived in . As children they build a theatre with old whale bones in the garden this enthused them and the family all became involved with performing.
So many characters were strong within this novel including the Brewers .
The book has been written in Acts and for me Act 1,4 and 5 were my favorite. Christa and Digby go into the army under the secret missions and Florrie into the land army. I enjoyed following their lives , loves, losses and hope. Beginning and ending with the theatre was very poignant.
This is An amazing first novel from this author and one that you must pick up!
AL