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A review by abookishaffair
The Marriage Bureau: True Stories From 1940s London Matchmakers by Penrose Halson
3.0
"The Marriage Bureau" is the story of two women who start at matchmaking firm in London during World War II. They pledge to make love matches between many people from many different walks of life. They set up their business on Bond Street. This book is billed as being a true story but reads more like a frothy, fun story of two women with a lot of anecdotes about some of the out of the ordinary clients that they serve.
This book definitely reads more like fiction and while the book says that the author drew on sources from the time and from interviews, much of the story is told through conversations between different characters in the book, which seems to blur the fiction/ non-fiction line a little bit. I appreciated that the author tried to pull the facts into more of a story rather than a history. I was hoping for more facts (How was the business set up? What was it like to have a business involved with very happy things during wartime?).
Also, since many of the stories about clients are anecdotal and contained to individual couples, there is not much of a story arc there. Individually, the stories about the clients are very entertaining. I did wish that there was a little bit more to this book but it is a good taste of an interesting business. It made me want to read more about this subject!
This book definitely reads more like fiction and while the book says that the author drew on sources from the time and from interviews, much of the story is told through conversations between different characters in the book, which seems to blur the fiction/ non-fiction line a little bit. I appreciated that the author tried to pull the facts into more of a story rather than a history. I was hoping for more facts (How was the business set up? What was it like to have a business involved with very happy things during wartime?).
Also, since many of the stories about clients are anecdotal and contained to individual couples, there is not much of a story arc there. Individually, the stories about the clients are very entertaining. I did wish that there was a little bit more to this book but it is a good taste of an interesting business. It made me want to read more about this subject!