The
Girl From The Savoy by
Hazel Gaynor is a fascinating historical novel that touches
on intense and compelling themes where dreams really do come
true. Readers will take the adventurous journey with the main
characters as they struggle with love, hope, loss, and healing.
This rags to riches story has Dorothy “Dolly”
Lane struggling to overcome the low-life career of being a
chambermaid, someone invisible to the upper class, while striving
to become a renowned star of the London stage. Many readers
might be reminded of the musical My Fair Lady based on the
play Pygmalion. The storyline has Dorothy taken in by Loretta
May, a famous actress who has a rebellious streak and lives
as she likes. She hopes to teach Dorothy how to fit into upper
society and become her protégé. But the story
also has Loretta, the daughter of an Earl, falling in love
and marrying a soldier, a commoner without a title.
Because she was inspired by this era Gaynor wanted to write
about “social change and how the war affected this new
decade. Women’s roles changed dramatically. The Great
War opened their eyes to a new way of life when they entered
the work force. For many it became impossible to return to
a life in domestic service after the relative freedoms of
factory or office work. The war also challenged the accepted
social norms for young ladies. Many volunteered as nurses
or had to manage without their husbands and sons, so that
they became more independent, including fighting for the vote.
I wanted to write strong women who were not victims and were
in charge of their own identity. They are not needy of a man
to take care of them.”
Set shortly after the end of WWI, this novel is told by three
narrators in the first person, with each perspective offering
some of the historical past. Through Dolly readers can explore
the class system and the rise of women’s independence;
Loretta and her brother Perry explore the Jazz Age; and Teddy
Cooper, Dolly’s fiancé, is a solider whose life
is changed by the war as he suffers from shell shock. It is
through Teddy that readers understand how WWI loomed large
over everyone and everything.
All the characters are fascinating and the many interesting
secondary ones also influenced the story including the Savoy
Hotel. Through the descriptions and events within the hotel
it becomes clear that it takes on a personality of its own,
almost speaking to the characters. For some it becomes a place
of security, almost like returning to a long lost friend.
Many times people speak of hearing cracks and creaks within
houses. Gaynor through her research found “people in
the book and in the real world talk about it as a living,
breathing character. It is a place where things were happening,
where people came and went, with lots of interesting drama.”
It appears that the hotel reacts to the issues the characters
face including their sense of loss and how they are haunted
by those memories. Teddy has amnesia and lost the life he
once knew. Reflected in this quote by Dolly are her feelings,
“My heart was broken, my dreams were shattered, my hopes
were bruised. Without ever stepping onto a battlefield, I
too was wounded… In many ways Teddy did not come back
at all.” Loretta lost her newlywed husband during the
war, and Perry, the musical composer brother, lost his edge,
preferring to be a follower than a leader, after being part
of a firing squad that killed his best friend.
Gaynor noted, “There was this loss of innocence. Remember
the famous line as soldiers went off to war, ‘It will
be over by Christmas.’ The families left behind the
lost years together. Many waited four years for loved ones
to come home, and physically they might have, but the person
once known, no longer existed. The lost years created a period
of separation that placed an emotional strain on the loved
ones. Typically history does not write about the women left
behind on the home front, which is why I wrote the backstory
of Dolly. Many were haunted by the loss of the life they had
hoped to have. Unfortunately, people did not talk about how
they felt. Instead, having to endure a stiff upper lip and
a get on with it attitude.”
If The Girl From The Savoy is the first book read
by Gaynor it will not be the last. She uses the backdrop of
World War I to create a riveting and gripping plot with characters
that will pull the reader immediately into the story. Not
only will people learn about the history of the 1920s, but
will feel they are along for the ride with the very well developed
characters.
Reviews
of other titles by this Author
The
Girl From the Savoy
The
Girl Who Came Home
The
Cottingley Secret
Last
Christmas in Paris - w/ Heather Webb 
The
Lighthouse Keepers Daughter
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