Book review: Another Heartbeat in the House by Kate Beaufoy

Kate Beaufoy’s Another Heartbeat in the House* is a historical romance which captures the heart of modern readers.

Official synopsis
Two women living a hundred years apart. One home that binds them together.

When Edie Chadwick travels to Ireland to close up her uncle’s lakeside lodge, it is as much to escape the burden of guilt she’s carrying as to break loose from the smart set of 1930’s London.

The old house is full of memories – not just her own, but those of a woman whose story has been left to gather dust in a chest in the attic: a handwritten memoir inscribed with an elegant signature… Eliza Drury.

As she turns the pages of the manuscript, Edie uncovers secrets she could never have imagined: an exciting tale of ambition, hardship, love and heartbreak – a story that has waited a lifetime to be told…

First impressions
I totally judged this book by its cover. It looked very much like a trashy piece of historical chick lit, something for the desperate housewives, but the press release/synopsis intrigued me and I’m glad I gave it a go.

Thoughts
When it comes to novels, I need a rather large amount of realism. With films I can usually suspend my disbelief to lose myself in something quite far-fetched but with a book I really need to be able to identify with what’s happening. Although that can be difficult with stories without a modern setting, I was completely captivated with Beaufoy’s 1930’s London and 1850’s Ireland, particularly the expectations and treatment of women. Both Eliza and Edie are incredibly feisty and determined women who know what they want and how to get it – regardless of what people might think of them. I think most of us could do with being a bit more ballsy!

One of the elements of the novel that I enjoyed the most was the literary references. Our initial heroine, Edie, works for a literary agency and it is her job to find The Next Big Thing. Her friend, Hilly, is about to publish Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and her good friend (and potential love interest) Ian has ideas for a spy novel (no prizes for guessing his last name!). And our second heroine, Eliza, becomes friends with none other than William Thackeray and inspires him to create one of literature’s best-loved heroines, Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp! Of course, there is a great deal of artistic license in this novel but that’s all part of the fun. It reminded me very much of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which is no bad thing!

Towards the end of Eliza’s manuscript, she makes the following observation:

That’s an imperative, I think, one of the most pressing imperatives in life: to want a story for oneself, even though life alone should be enough. But it never is, is it? We feel compelled to record it in word or in image, to leave behind some tangible evidence that we were here once, that we lived and breathed and laughed and cried and suffered and celebrated and mattered, in some small way.

I found it rather poignant given that we live in an age hugely populated by bloggers, vloggers and the selfie-obsessed, and it made me consider why I blog. It started out as a way for me to share my film reviews, and thus start building a portfolio, but my various blogs have changed over the last decade to become a more somewhat self-involved diary-esque space on the world wide web. Of course, now it’s partly to record Jenson’s life and give him something to look back on when he’s older, so I guess Kate/Eliza was onto something with her ‘tangible evidence’ comment.

Another Heartbeat in the House is Kate’s second historical novel, succeeding Liberty Silk, a book I hadn’t come across before but will definitely be adding to The List. Look out for a review soon!