REVIEW: The Finishing Touches
The Finishing Touches: Hester Browne. Hodder, 2010
It’s been a while since I read a romance, although strictly speaking this is chicklit, with a romantic subplot, and it’s been a while since I read one of those too. There are two explicit references to Bridget Jones in this book, although this takes place in a posher milieu. There are also probably more references to Georgette Heyer’s books, and this could have been subtitled ‘The Foundling’.
Anyway, as I’ve said before, Browne pulls off a classier type of chicklit than many, with a sympathetic heroine, who is fallible, but smart, at a crucial point in her life. There’s wish fulfilment and feet on the ground, comic scenarios and relatable emotions. This book is particularly concerned with being a young woman, the need to work out how to pull off various aspects of your life, to work out who you are or rediscover it. There are fairy tale references (the name of the shop Betsy works at, Miss Thorne) but each chapter is headed with a practical lifestyle tip.
The set-up is extraordinary, and knows it. In one of the last finishing schools in London, on the day of Charles and Diana’s wedding, a newborn baby is found on the doorstep. Lady Frances Tallimore, who helps out at the school, which has been in her husband’s family for decades, has always longed for a daughter, and takes her in. More or less the only identifying item left with the baby is an expensive bee charm, which made me think they should have named her Beatrice, but Lady Franny and Kathleen the cook who first found her plump for Betsy, short for Elizabeth.
The book is alrady ahead of us, with characters acknowledging how anachronistic finishing schools were then and in the late 2000s, not to mention how unusual foundling scenarios like this are. Most of the book is about Betsy Tallimore in her mid twenties, and having to face questions of identity that people adopted in less unusual situations might sympathise with. Her beloved adoptive mother, Lady Franny, has just died, leading Betsy to question what the truth of her birth and background is.
Now, returning to London from Edinburgh - something Lord Tallimore said when Betsy was a teenager sent her off to St Andrew’s university, the furthest university from London in the UK, and then she stayed in Scotland - for Franny’s memorial service, Betsy is back at the Tallimore Academy and notices a change from the elegant property that was the magical backdrop to her childhood. The building looks more run down and dated.
We’re well on her side when Lord Tallimore, under a mistaken impression about Betsy’s actual job, asks her to come in and look over the faltering finishing school, as a management consultant. When he invokes Franny, who loved the place. Betsy can’t refuse, especially as it occurs to her that there could be no better place to investigate her birth parents than where she was abandoned as a baby.
But in doing so, she’ll have to face up to the woman she is now and the woman she wants to be in all their complexities. The book is great about the interaction of women from different generations. Missing her most important role model, Betsy still has two loving godmothers who helped bring her up in Kathleen, the former cook at the Academy, and Nancy, the more romantic former matron. Now retired, they’ve always kept Betsy rooted. The remaining teachers who remember her as a child have mixed attitudes towards Betsy. Brought up to be polite and give people the benefit of the doubt, Betsy is slower to admit that headmistress Miss Thorne is a piece of work, and Betsy finds an antagonist in Adele Buchanan, the old girl who liked Betsy the least, who callously uses the old nickname of ‘little orphan Annie’ to redheaded Betsy when they reunite. Adele is now employed as a mentor at the academy, so how does Betsy deal with her gold-digging influence? There are other Old Girls too, one of whom may be Betsy’s birth mother, and Betsy is a mix of acute observer and dreamy child around them.
But then Betsy clearly has a lot to offer the few current students, who are all amusing takes on modern millionairesses, desperate to get a Hello! photoshoot or an invite to celebrity parties. But underneath it, Betsy can see that they are just teenage girls, lacking in confidence and common sense, needing guidance and polish. But she quickly realises that the curriculum on offer is out of date. Can she set aside her imposter syndrome and lack of experience to help the students and the academy, bringing it back to life, but making it fit for the twenty-first century, using all that Franny taught her about the mysteries of womanhood and what she’s learned since from her own experience?
As well as all this, there are romantic complications - Betsy may be fighting hard to prepare the girls for more than marriage, but her love life has been affected by her issues about who she is as much as any other aspect of her life. For once, I found myself changing my mind about who Betsy should end up with, partly influenced by Betsy’s not entirely reliable narration. There’s Jamie O’Hare, big brother to Betsy’s oldest friend, Liv, and the book is excellent on the dynamics of fancying your best friend’s brother, which is what Betsy has done since she was a teenager. He’s gorgeous and gregarious, but the sensible voice in her head has always held her back from treating his flirtatiousness too seriously, plus there’s the problem of her occasional inability to form words or coherent sentences in front of him. On the other hand, there’s the academy’s volunteer bursar Mark, who makes an epically bad first impression on Betsy by seeming mean, while she manages to be rather too honest, but they soon form an alliance to try to stop the academy from closing for good.
It’s nicely complicated, but entertainingly so. Betsy is witty (and still mourning,) the ladies of the academy, from terrifying mobster’s daughter Anastasia to the indiscreet assistant Paulette, are funny, not to mention how lived-in Betsy and shopaholic Liv’s friendship feels. Yes, there are one or two questions - like if Betsy was such a beloved adopted daughter, why did she call her parents ‘Franny’ and ‘Lord T’ and why was what seems to have been her bedroom in the mews behind the academy with Kathleen ad Nancy? That seems weird, even for the repressed upper classes. No wonder she felt so shunned by Lord T’s unfortunate comment when she was eighteen, although wouldn’t she have a good idea of her plans for her immediate future before her A-level results? Still, speaking as someone who doesn’t have a signature shade of red lipstick because I don’t own any lipstick, I really got caught up in this book, and it conveyed a sense of place well. This entry was originally posted at https://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/190276.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.
It’s been a while since I read a romance, although strictly speaking this is chicklit, with a romantic subplot, and it’s been a while since I read one of those too. There are two explicit references to Bridget Jones in this book, although this takes place in a posher milieu. There are also probably more references to Georgette Heyer’s books, and this could have been subtitled ‘The Foundling’.
Anyway, as I’ve said before, Browne pulls off a classier type of chicklit than many, with a sympathetic heroine, who is fallible, but smart, at a crucial point in her life. There’s wish fulfilment and feet on the ground, comic scenarios and relatable emotions. This book is particularly concerned with being a young woman, the need to work out how to pull off various aspects of your life, to work out who you are or rediscover it. There are fairy tale references (the name of the shop Betsy works at, Miss Thorne) but each chapter is headed with a practical lifestyle tip.
The set-up is extraordinary, and knows it. In one of the last finishing schools in London, on the day of Charles and Diana’s wedding, a newborn baby is found on the doorstep. Lady Frances Tallimore, who helps out at the school, which has been in her husband’s family for decades, has always longed for a daughter, and takes her in. More or less the only identifying item left with the baby is an expensive bee charm, which made me think they should have named her Beatrice, but Lady Franny and Kathleen the cook who first found her plump for Betsy, short for Elizabeth.
The book is alrady ahead of us, with characters acknowledging how anachronistic finishing schools were then and in the late 2000s, not to mention how unusual foundling scenarios like this are. Most of the book is about Betsy Tallimore in her mid twenties, and having to face questions of identity that people adopted in less unusual situations might sympathise with. Her beloved adoptive mother, Lady Franny, has just died, leading Betsy to question what the truth of her birth and background is.
Now, returning to London from Edinburgh - something Lord Tallimore said when Betsy was a teenager sent her off to St Andrew’s university, the furthest university from London in the UK, and then she stayed in Scotland - for Franny’s memorial service, Betsy is back at the Tallimore Academy and notices a change from the elegant property that was the magical backdrop to her childhood. The building looks more run down and dated.
We’re well on her side when Lord Tallimore, under a mistaken impression about Betsy’s actual job, asks her to come in and look over the faltering finishing school, as a management consultant. When he invokes Franny, who loved the place. Betsy can’t refuse, especially as it occurs to her that there could be no better place to investigate her birth parents than where she was abandoned as a baby.
But in doing so, she’ll have to face up to the woman she is now and the woman she wants to be in all their complexities. The book is great about the interaction of women from different generations. Missing her most important role model, Betsy still has two loving godmothers who helped bring her up in Kathleen, the former cook at the Academy, and Nancy, the more romantic former matron. Now retired, they’ve always kept Betsy rooted. The remaining teachers who remember her as a child have mixed attitudes towards Betsy. Brought up to be polite and give people the benefit of the doubt, Betsy is slower to admit that headmistress Miss Thorne is a piece of work, and Betsy finds an antagonist in Adele Buchanan, the old girl who liked Betsy the least, who callously uses the old nickname of ‘little orphan Annie’ to redheaded Betsy when they reunite. Adele is now employed as a mentor at the academy, so how does Betsy deal with her gold-digging influence? There are other Old Girls too, one of whom may be Betsy’s birth mother, and Betsy is a mix of acute observer and dreamy child around them.
But then Betsy clearly has a lot to offer the few current students, who are all amusing takes on modern millionairesses, desperate to get a Hello! photoshoot or an invite to celebrity parties. But underneath it, Betsy can see that they are just teenage girls, lacking in confidence and common sense, needing guidance and polish. But she quickly realises that the curriculum on offer is out of date. Can she set aside her imposter syndrome and lack of experience to help the students and the academy, bringing it back to life, but making it fit for the twenty-first century, using all that Franny taught her about the mysteries of womanhood and what she’s learned since from her own experience?
As well as all this, there are romantic complications - Betsy may be fighting hard to prepare the girls for more than marriage, but her love life has been affected by her issues about who she is as much as any other aspect of her life. For once, I found myself changing my mind about who Betsy should end up with, partly influenced by Betsy’s not entirely reliable narration. There’s Jamie O’Hare, big brother to Betsy’s oldest friend, Liv, and the book is excellent on the dynamics of fancying your best friend’s brother, which is what Betsy has done since she was a teenager. He’s gorgeous and gregarious, but the sensible voice in her head has always held her back from treating his flirtatiousness too seriously, plus there’s the problem of her occasional inability to form words or coherent sentences in front of him. On the other hand, there’s the academy’s volunteer bursar Mark, who makes an epically bad first impression on Betsy by seeming mean, while she manages to be rather too honest, but they soon form an alliance to try to stop the academy from closing for good.
It’s nicely complicated, but entertainingly so. Betsy is witty (and still mourning,) the ladies of the academy, from terrifying mobster’s daughter Anastasia to the indiscreet assistant Paulette, are funny, not to mention how lived-in Betsy and shopaholic Liv’s friendship feels. Yes, there are one or two questions - like if Betsy was such a beloved adopted daughter, why did she call her parents ‘Franny’ and ‘Lord T’ and why was what seems to have been her bedroom in the mews behind the academy with Kathleen ad Nancy? That seems weird, even for the repressed upper classes. No wonder she felt so shunned by Lord T’s unfortunate comment when she was eighteen, although wouldn’t she have a good idea of her plans for her immediate future before her A-level results? Still, speaking as someone who doesn’t have a signature shade of red lipstick because I don’t own any lipstick, I really got caught up in this book, and it conveyed a sense of place well. This entry was originally posted at https://feather-ghyll.dreamwidth.org/190276.html. Please comment wherever you prefer to.