Publisher: Michael Joseph
Release date: 3 July 2025
Back cover blurb: London, 1941. When Mary meets a glamorous stranger named Elizabeth she realises their lives couldn’t be more different. Elizabeth is beautiful and charming, about to set off on a dazzling adventure to Ireland where she’s inherited a grand house. Mary, shy and meek, has nothing to look forward to but the dreary life of a maid in Hampstead. But when an air raid forces them to take shelter underground Mary’s life is suddenly changed forever. After waking up in hospital, injured but alive, the nurse mistakes her for Elizabeth and hands over her suitcase with Elizabeth’s money and tickets to Ireland inside. This is Mary’s chance to escape the hardship of her life and start afresh. Will she take it and what could go wrong?
Mary Price is looking for an escape from her hard work in service when by chance she meets Elizabeth Manning in a Lyons Corner Café.
The two become fast friends, although their worlds are completely different, but Elizabeth sees something of herself in Mary and offers her the opportunity of a lifetime, to come on an adventure with her to Ireland and a cottage that she has inherited from a distant relative.
She is leaving the very next day, but it is an offer Mary can't refuse, although she is uncertain at first. It would be such a change from her difficult life to date.
Mary is still considering her new friends offer when the air raid siren sounds and both women are forced into an underground shelter. This is where tragedy strikes. Elizabeth is killed and Mary wakes up in a hospital bed being identified as her new friend.
She makes a split decision there and then to take on Elizabeth's identify, to make a better life for herself, as is sure that Elizabeth would have wanted her to. And she won't be the only person during a War that is using false papers...
From here on in, her life should be easier, Elizabeth has been more fortunate than Mary that much is clear.
But in wartime nothing is straightforward and Mary's real hard work is only just about to begin...
This is a wonderfully written novel and I look forward to reading more from this author. I particularly liked some of the locations used. Although I am based in South Wales, I am very close to Bristol and was familiar with some of the spots mentioned, and it was interesting to think of how they might have been in WW2.
The Girl with the Suitcase is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.
Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.