#BookReview The Girl from the Savoy by Hazel Gaynor @HazelGaynor

The Girl from the Savoy by Hazel Gaynor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes life gives you cotton stockings. Sometimes it gives you a Chanel gown …

Dolly Lane is a dreamer; a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but her life has been fractured by the Great War. Memories of the soldier she loved, of secret shame and profound loss, by turns pull her back and spur her on to make a better life.

When she finds employment as a chambermaid at London’s grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly takes a step closer to the glittering lives of the Bright Young Things who thrive on champagne, jazz and rebellion. Right now, she must exist on the fringes of power, wealth and glamor—she must remain invisible and unimportant.

But her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she responds to a struggling songwriter’s advertisement for a ‘muse’ and finds herself thrust into London’s exhilarating theatre scene and into the lives of celebrated actress, Loretta May, and her brother, Perry. Loretta and Perry may have the life Dolly aspires to, but they too are searching for something.

Now, at the precipice of the life she has and the one she longs for, the girl from The Savoy must make difficult choices: between two men; between two classes, between everything she knows and everything she dreams of. A brighter future is tantalizingly close—but can a girl like Dolly ever truly leave her past behind?

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I decided to listen to the audio version of this book and I'm glad to say that I spend some happy hours working and listening to The Girl from the Savoy. I've wanted for a while to read it and I'm pleased to say that the book made the hours fly by...

There are two points of views in this book that of Dolly, who dreams of becoming a star on stage and Loretta May, who is a star, but whose dreams were destroyed in the war. I found both women's stories fascinating and tragic. Both have gone through much and I enjoyed their interaction (when they finally met).

One thing I really liked was that the blurb states that Dolly has to choose between two men, but that is to simplify the story quite a lot. Yes, there are two men in Dolly's life, Teddy who she loved, but came home a shell of a man after the war and Perry that quite literary fell into her life. However, this is not an ordinary triangle drama with Dolly not being able to choose between Teddy and Perry, there is so much more to the story than that, which you will discover if you read the book.

As for Loretta, she may be a star, but she is one classy woman and I really liked her. I liked that she is the one that sees potentials in Dolly. Also, her past in the war is so heartbreaking. 

The Girl from the Savoy is a great novel, there are sad moments in the book, but also joyous ones. And I loved that the book did not have the tradition HEA ending. Although I wish to know what happened to the other man in the book...