I really enjoyed this book with its nuanced writing about class and politics in the UK in the late 1930s, and, due to the author's skills, I was surprised to find myself feeling quite sympathetic towards naive Phyllis and her almost unintentional far right beliefs.

This historical fiction is set mostly in the south of England in the period 1938-40, with partial flashbacks from 1979 written by Phyllis. In 1938 Phyllis has just returned to England from a privileged life overseas with her husband and two children. She is reunited with her two sisters, Patricia and Nina, their families and her parents. She becomes involved with Nina's committee who are organising a summer camp. It is not immediately obvious to the reader what this summer camp is: church? local community? However it soon becomes apparent that this is a summer camp of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) led by Oswald Mosley. The novel concerns the rise, beliefs and motivations of the BUF and the author has researched the period well. I did not know a great deal about the BUF and was interested to read about the imprisonment of some members and their removal to the Isle of Man. I did not learn a great deal about the rise and membership of the movement however but perhaps this fits with the main character's alleged naivety about some of what was happening around her. The characters were all rather unpleasant, not only due to their political values, but their interactions with each other and apparent lack of care for even their close family members. The flashback part of the text is printed in italics and appears as if Phyllis is talking to someone about her life but the identity of this listener is never made clear.
I received a complimentary e-copy of this book from the publisher via Net Galley in return for an honest review.

Phyllis Forrester and her husband, Hugh, return to England, after some years abroad, with their children, Julia, Frances and Edwin. Phyllis is keen to find a house near her sisters, Patricia and Nina. Indeed, while house hunting, the family stay with Patricia, her husband, Greville and their daughter, Antonia. Her other sister, Nina, and husband, Eric, also live nearby. While there, she hears about Nina’s ‘camps,’ which are talked about as a bit of fun and a good way to socialise. There is also much socialising with Patricia; although her taste runs to the more conventional dinner parties.

What both Nina and Patricia share, although they are otherwise not close, is an admiration for ‘The Leader,’ Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. Much of this book takes place in 1938, with the spectre of war on the horizon. Many of those in this book can remember the Great War and they are keen on the idea of peace. For Hugh, side-lined from his senior company role, his new, political interests offer him something to do. It is less clear what Phyllis really finds attractive about her sisters political affiliations. She enjoys the socialising aspect of both Nina’s, seemingly innocuous camps, with talks, sing-songs and games, and makes new friends through both her sisters – the straight talking Venetia Gordon-Canning and the ethereal, beautiful Sarita. However, there is little about her own views on either Mosley, or Fascism.

Overall, I found this beautifully written, but the characters are difficult to either warm to, or understand. Much of this takes place as though Phyllis is telling her story, long after the events of the past. She is oddly naïve, strangely keen to be close to the sisters she seems to have little relationship with and allows events to flow around her, without really being more than a passive spectator. The much talked about event at the party, from the title, is, frankly, not overly shocking. Still, this is an interesting look at how people became involved in the politics of the 1930’s, when both Fascism and Communism seemed viable options and much of a generation hoped to avoid another European conflict. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review. Rated 3.5

The title gives no clues as to the real story which unfolds in the pages of this novel.The party could be a physical social event or relate to some sort of political allegiance between a group of like minded individuals.In the case of this novel it means both.The story revolves around the lives of three sisters in the time before WWII with their married lives being described along with party going in middle/upper households.Another type of party starts to take hold in various ways into the lives of the three sisters and their families.This party has a slightly sinister undertone at this stage in history because it involves Oswald Mosley who lead a party which had fascist leanings in the 1930s.The author gives an interesting account of the summer camps that were organised for the members of party and the ways this played a part in the three sisters lives.Phyllis the middle sister gives an added perspective in the book as she writes intermittently of her thoughts 40years after the main events of the book.She was interred during the war because of her and her husband's involvement in the Party.She was very naive in those days and looks back with a little regret at that time in her life.It is very salutary and sobering reading about how these people (especially the women) were treated at this time.This is an aspect of History which should be given more space and air time because of the injustices which were meated out to men and women.As always it is sobering to read of the family intrigues which happened during this time and it makes me wonder how much of this rivalry goes on today within family groups.Who can you trust?

Before reading After the Party, I would never have imagined I could feel sympathy for someone who had espoused a far right cause. This book is so sensitively written, however, that it is impossible not to feel sadness for the protagonist, and to recognise that she is embroiled in something, the potential consequences of which, she doesn't fully understand.

Phyllis Forrester is the youngest of three sisters. In 1938 they are all living, in various states of prosperity, in the south of England. Phyllis has three children, two girls and a boy, all about to go back to boarding school.

Through her middle sister, Nina, she becomes involved in a political party, the leader of which is simply referred to as The Leader. At first she is not especially interested in the cause but as she has little to do she helps her sister out. Her eldest sister, Patricia, is also involved but to a lesser extent. Patricia and her husband, Greville, are at the upper end of the social scale, Phyllis and Hugh are perhaps slightly below, and they both think Nina and her husband, Eric, are a little infra dig, as he runs a garage and she runs summer camps for members of the Party and their children. Patricia invites The Leader, or the Old Man, as he is sometimes called, to a grand dinner and a certain amount of vying for his attention is involved.

Though the Leader is not specifically named until some way into the novel, it is soon obvious who he is. He is charismatic and charming and his followers all adore him. Phyllis meets a Sarita through her association with the Party and they become friends, though Sarita is often a little vague and distrait. When disaster strikes, Phyllis feels guilty that she had not seen the truth of the situation and had not been able to step in to help.

When war breaks out Phyllis and her husband, Hugh, are unexpectedly taken into custody. There is no trial and no formal sentencing. Separated, they are given little information as to what is going on or where the other is. Phyllis feels that her incarceration is in some way justified - not because of her association with the Party but because she let her friend down.

Years pass. Phyllis is sent to a camp on the Isle of Man along with other politicos and enemy aliens. She discovers another way of life, of friendships with women, of making do and of overcoming hardships. She misses her children desperately. When she is finally released they barely recognise her, and the youngest, Edwin, has become attached to Patricia and Greville, who have taken him in every school holiday.

Betrayed by both her sisters for different reasons, and in reduced circumstances, Phyllis moves north. Her children blame her for her involvement in what is now considered a wicked cause, and she has little contact with her sisters. She has become, perhaps sardonic rather than bitter, and quite apart from seeing the misjudgement in her earlier associations, has become rather more deeply entrenched in her views.

This is a beautifully written book, full of poignancy and sadness. It shows how lives can be destroyed by happenstance and by foolish errors of judgement and how, ultimately, no lessons may be learned.

I didn't really know whether to feel any sympathy for Phyllis by the end of this book or not. A wealthy lady comes back from some years abroad and is press-ganged by her sister into joining a camping group. The camping group is the British National Party run by the charismatic Tom, or Oswald Moseley. As her family become more and more involved with the party, Phyllis becomes friends with a neighbour. As tragedy strikes and Phyllis and her husband are arrested, life spirals out of control.
A well written, interesting novel about a shady period of British history. I think the main character was easily led and a bit naive but ultimately, got what she deserved. Superbly well written though with some really evocative language.

I was sent a copy of After the Party by Cressida Connolly to read and review by NetGalley.
The beginning of this novel was very engaging, beautifully written and full of promise. However, the further I got into the book it became more like an essay, imparting facts and thoughts eventually in quite a dry way. There was a good deal of repetition with areas of the prose touched on in both the main, dare I say, story and the sections in the first person where the main protagonist is writing a sort of memoir/letter 40 years later.
While the novel tackles a part of wartime history that I wasn’t aware of and found quite interesting, I must admit I found the fact that most of the characters in the novel were wealthy upper-class people whose lifestyles began to wear on me after a while. I really couldn’t bring myself to care much about any of them! I’m sorry to say the blurb for the book made it sound much more lively and interesting than it actually was.

Drawn like a moth to a flame to this intriguing story. A family saga amongst the County Set in Sussex, between the Great Wars. And a piece of political history that I had scant knowledge of, even at my age. Seemingly sensible folk beguiled by the British Alliance, an overt group of fascists.

Phyllis and her husband Hugh return to England after living for several years in Belgium. They stay with sister Patricia in her palladian mansion for a while until sister Nina finds them a place to rent, whilst Hugh searches for a piece of land to build a new property.

It’s 1938. Nina runs summer camps, a cloak for Alliance meetings, and Phyllis with her idealism is captivated by the charismatic Master - Oswald Mosley, who preaches appeasement before war. Women of principle are attracted to the movement, little understanding how they will be ostracised when war does inevitably break out.

One event, at a party will change Phyllis’ life for ever as she recounts in a personal record following her lengthy incarceration. The reason for her time in prison becomes clear as her personal account unwinds.

Difficult to say more without revealing too much. I can say that I became totally immersed in After The Party. It’s different and beautifully written, almost hypnotic. A piece of social and political history that benefits from the revelations in this remarkable book.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This book was a slow read but an interesting one; at just 272 pages it seemed to take much longer to read than anticipated. I read an unproofed copy courtesy of Net Galley and the publishers, for which I thank you. The publisher's blurb gives the reader the synopsis so I won't repeat that. It is an interesting period in English history and one that makes for a good story. The title is clever. I didn't warm to any of the characters, nor their beliefs, nor their way of life. The book put me in mind of Howard's Cazalet Chronicles but with more politics and less 'pater and mater' influence; rather it's a tale of sibling rivalry, and an uneasy read in some places. The main story is written in the third person and interspersed with the memories of Phyllis written in first person which are presented in italics. So the flow of the book is easy to follow. Worth a read if you are interested in English fascism in the late 1930's - early 1940's.

Phyllis, her husband Hugh and their three children have moved back to the UK after living in Europe for several years because of Hugh’s work. Phyllis had wanted to come home while living abroad, but now that it was a reality she wasn’t so sure. She had missed her family and was looking forward to reconnecting.

The family ended up staying with Patricia and her family at first, but then her sister Nina had helped them to find somewhere to rent while Hugh went about building their new home from scratch. The relationship between the sisters isn’t great, Nina being politically involved and Patricia determined to move in higher circles there was always competition between those two for Phyllis’ attention.

The real pity about the story is that Phyllis and her husband end up in prison because of Nina's associations more than theirs. Her life gets destroyed by no fault of her own in my opinion.

Not really my sort of book at all, but beautifully descriptive to the point that you can visualise everything. Heavy in history and politics to what turns out to be quite a sad story.

This is a book that makes you think. Having been born in 1954, all my life I've been told how evil Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union was. This book covers the party from a Society Woman's point of view. The world was such a different place. So many people had servants, children away at school and too much time on their hands, the women anyway. Phyllis who we follow doesn't follow politics, she lived through the Great War and just wants peace - almost at any price.

If you want a look at life in the 30s & 40s, the politics - sort of - of the women of the time. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book. I think it will stay with me and make me think for a good while to come.

When I read the blurb about this book I really wasn't sure about reading it. However I am so glad that I did. I found myself gripped from start to finish.

Regarding the genre, it is very hard to place the book. It is part family saga, part family tragedy, part historical fiction. I

I loved the style of writing and the way the characters were crafted and developed.

It is difficult to say too much about how the story unfolds, without giving too much away. Suffice to say that the book manages to fully encapsulate the sense of what life was like in middle class rural England in the inter-war years. Into this is added a bit of political intrigue.

This is a book which I will remember for a long time. It will certainly be a contender for my 'book of the year' list.

I give my thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books UK for a copy of this book in exchange for this review.

This was the absorbing account of Phyllis Forrester who, having returned from living abroad with her husband and children, returns to live near her two sisters, and finds herself being drawn into the world of the British Fascists before the second world war. Oswald Moseley is their charismatic hero and they are all convinced that appeasement and avoidance of war at all costs is the right way to go. The chapters are interspersed with Phyllis' first person account of her experiences as she comes out of prison, (we are not told why she is there at first) and then goes on to slowly unfold the events leading up to this, and then the aftermath. The structure is brilliant and Phyllis' character is extremely well drawn as a follower; trusting, accepting, rather naive, and never having an opportunity to show who she really is. The period feel is faultless and we may gasp at some of the attitudes of the time which are so well depicted here. I found it both entertaining and educational.

After a slow start I became intrigued to read about the followers of Sir Oswald Mosely. Involving a family in the story highlighted how their allegiance to his party affected their lives.

This is a very shrewd,perceptive story of a social class who believe in their entitlement and who dismiss the working people as beneath them and incapable of political views or of anything else worthy of them. Then society changes and those who earn their living triumph. Woven into this is the unusual, and under told, story of what happened to the Mosley supporters. Connolly uses that very cleverly to add to the internal warfare of the family that this book is about. It is a tale of family warfare,social change and deep regrets. To start with,I wondered where it was all going but that gradually becomes evident.

After the Party is an interesting, if a bit of a slow, read mostly set in pre-war Britain against the backdrop of the rise of Mosley's party and fascism. I really enjoy books about the upper classes and aristocracy, how they lived, their beliefs, the snobbery, etc. and this didn't disappoint. The politics the main subject of the story is not an area of history that I am all that familiar with and I enjoyed reading about it, however, overall I felt the book a little slow.

‘After the party’ didn’t grab me with the enthusiasm I expected; it’s a potentially fascinating perspective to explore - those on the edge of the rise (and fall) of the Mosley’s fascist party. Unfortunately much of it does rather feel as if the interesting events are happening to other people rather than the central character, who blithely drifts through the narrative. Short chapters set in the 70s provide perspective and the opportunity for a preview of what is to come, but I felt these were rather forced.
The evocation of late 30s and 40s society feels genuine, but this wasn’t enough to maintain my interest. There’s the material for a great novel here but for me this didn’t have the necessary emotional engagement.

This is the story of Phyllis Forrester and her family ‘drifting‘ into pre-war politics either unconsciously or naively (as it seems for Phyllis, at least). Her family returns to England in 1938 from living overseas. The story is written from 2 periods; pre (to during) WWII and 1979. The sister with whom Phyllis is closest, invites her and her 3 children to a fun-filled Summer camp which she eagerly joins as she is finding it difficult to keep her children entertained in the Summer holidays. It’s cleverly written to show how people can be misled by seemingly innocent entertainments (I though it was a Trades Union’s holiday camp at first, like they have in France)! But it soon becomes clear that it is no such thing.

The speeches start, and deal mainly with ‘supporting the Englishman’ – e.g. as in shopkeepers against large chainstores taking over, all rather ‘UKIP’ and as another reviewer has said, a bit Brexit! Speeches focus on avoiding England being drawn in to another war after so many had been lost in the previous one. Although Phyllis seems to remain in blissful ignorance it seems hard that she didn’t pick up on the Fascist parts of the speeches (which must have occurred but are not mentioned). But the movement is shown putting itself forward to people as a pacifist organisation, totally anti-war. If that was the case I can understand ordinary people being attracted to it at the time, having lost so much in WWI. However, the ‘ignorance’ of what the British Union stood for is weakened rather, by the date of the story – It begins in 1938 and most people would have known about the East End Cable Street riots in 1936 by then, and known what this party stood for, surely? Anti-Jewish sentiment is raised at one point, but it’s swept away as a ‘minor issue’; the organisation is portrayed as consciously playing this subject down, always coming back to the ‘protection of the Englishman’ and peace.

You wonder from the start what the narrator has done to end up in prison – and this is quite an education. The ending is quite anti-climactic, it’s more of an explanation and update than anything else. I found it very insightful as an illustration of how people could be ‘taken in’ by cleverly, manipulated rhetoric at a time of need. However, while reading this you do have to remind yourself of what Moseley and his blackshirts stood for, the violence and hatred he stirred up – this story doesn’t touch on that (but that’s not its aim). Another interesting insight is how ‘outsiders’ see political prisoners once they’re jailed – even if they’re guilty of exactly the same crime.

I like this for making me think around a subject we easily say we would never have been involved with. To see how ordinary people could have been taken in; how things can be disguised at the time, of what a party can stand for (though again, it was pretty clear cut after the 1936 riots); how masses can be manipulated by charismatic individuals and how this plays out for one particular family. Wilful ignorance, fascist intentions or just not thinking at all?

An interesting novel which at times feels more like an autobiography of the time leading up to WW2 and the rise of Fascism even in the UK. It is a subject I knew little about and had never really considered so on that level I found it very interesting. Phyllis is the woman who both tells some of the story and whom the main writing is about. I didn't really warm to her or her sisters and their families so as a story it was not reverting and very little actually happens. However as a historical piece it has merit and is well written. I would give it 3-4 stars.

A rather subtle story, interesting and original. Set in the period leading up to and including the Second World War, but very different from most novels of that era. Not exciting or high octane in content never the less quite moving and profound. An enjoyable and interesting read