Jennifer Robson’s The Gown was told from the point of view of those constructing the future Queen Elizabeth II’s wedding dress. Her latest slice of historical fiction focuses on in three wholly different people living life in London during the year of the Queen’s coronation, with the story climaxing on the very day Elizabeth takes the throne. The book retains Robson’s spirit and sense of historical research, and it provides a fascinating look at life in Britain at the time.

At the Blue Lion Hotel – which has passed from Howard to Howard over the span of four hundred years – times are getting dire. Edie, the latest Howard in charge of the Lion, discovers that the hotel will be on the route through which the young monarch will pass after her coronation, and realises this could be just the thing to repair the place’s fading fortunes. The procession which will draw crowds and will likely draw people to the Lion, where she hopes to make up her financial deficit by charging premium rates for her rooms. With any luck, as the hotel begins to reach full occupancy for the first time in years, Edie will end up making enough money to avoid having to sell the property to a rich developer.

Stella Donati survived the Holocaust and the camps but lost her parents, and now must forge ahead alone as she takes up photography after watching her parents write travel guides. Penpals with Edie, Stella moves into the Blue Lion and takes on a job with Picture Weekly magazine. Her goal is to grab a lucrative picture of the Queen in her carriage as she passes by, which could make Stella’s name as a photographer.

Jamie Geddes is an artist who has been hired to draw an official portrait of Elizabeth and the coronation in general. He hies into the Blue Lion to begin making sketches and preliminary paintings.

The three friends become closer, step by step, as winter passes into spring and summer. But danger sets in when threatening letters begin showing up at Picture Weekly postmarked from the Blue Lion. Who is trying to sabotage Edie’s success? Is something more dangerous afoot?

Coronation Year does an excellent job of bringing to life those who sit on the fringes of a huge event. Edie, Jamie and Stella are all beautifully memorable in their own ways, and honest about what they want out of life. They’re fun to follow as they struggle, win, and fall in love. The mystery, too, is surprising and decently involving.

The grander picture here is lovely too, as Robson portrays a postwar England just beginning to get on with the business of recovery. We know that prosperity won’t really set back in again until the 1960s, when Carnaby Street becomes the place to be and the Beatles the cultural epicenter of a generation. In this between time there is joy, struggle, anger, and bitter memory.

It’s a book perfumed with memories of Queen Elizabeth II without being bogged down in the weight of her legacy, and is fascinating to read in the wake of her death. Though it’s about what happens to a nation during a large cultural shift, Coronation Year will have you enraptured and curious to the last page.

Buy it at: Amazon

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