NOT ALL TARTS ARE APPLE

The summer of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1952 is seen through the eyes of an endearing seven-year-old narrator. Rosie lives contentedly in Soho with Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bert over the café they own, going to school and rarely seeing her mother Cassandra, a gin-addicted prostitute whom Rosie calls the “Perfumed Lady.” Regulars at the café include Rosie’s sometimes surrogate mothers, fortuneteller Madame Zelda, and Paulette, who claims to teach French and whose one-time pimp Dave still hangs around. Sharky Finn, the lawyer next door, has drawn up an agreement for Maggie and Bert to adopt Rosie—if only they can get Cassie sober enough to sign it. When local bookseller Archie Herbert turns up with Rosie’s Great-aunt Dodie, it’s decided that they, along with Bert, Maggie, and Rosie, will vacation with Maggie’s sister in Somerset. In this seaside setting, Rosie learns more about her mother’s background. Rosie’s grandmother Evelyn, left a widow, had quickly married Godfrey, a man with greedy designs on the family business, Loveday Engineering. Those designs, carried out with the help of some nasty hired hands, are now aimed at Rosie. But the young heroine and her allies come through every peril and return to a hard-won serenity. The unlikelihood of all these intrigues is outweighed by the vivid character studies and the charm of Rosie’s narrative.

A very different and truly beguiling debut.