Book Review: Debutantes by Cora Harrison.

Product details:
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books.
Release date: August 2nd 2012.
Paperback, 320 pages.
Rating: 2½ out of 5.
Ages: 11+
Source: Received from publisher for review.

It’s 1923 and London is a whirl of jazz, dancing and parties. Violet, Daisy, Poppy and Rose Derrington are desperate to be part of it, but stuck in an enormous crumbling house in the country, with no money and no fashionable dresses, the excitement seems a lifetime away.

Luckily the girls each have a plan for escaping their humdrum country life: Rose wants to be a novelist, Poppy a jazz musician and Daisy a famous film director. Violet, however, has only one ambition: to become the perfect Debutante, so that she can go to London and catch the eye of Prince George, the most eligible bachelor in the country.

But a house as big and old as Beech Grove Manor hides many secrets, and Daisy is about to uncover one so huge it could ruin all their plans—ruin everything—forever.

A light, fluffy read in a pretty package, Cora Harrison’s Debutantes is a sweetly innocent tale of sisterly bonds and family mysteries.

Violet, Daisy, Poppy and Rose Derrington are bored.  They want all the glitz and glamour of London life, but instead all they have is a crumbling old manor in the countryside.  They want to have fun, and for that, they need fine dresses.  One day as the girls search through a chest of clothes in search of this finery, they find a mysterious letter, which leads to long held family secrets being exposed, secrets that will change their lives forever.

Jazz-age books are all the rage in YA lately, but this one is something a little bit different. For one this book is not set in US, but the UK, so this is not the jazz-age of speakeasies and flappers. It’s a more innocent take on the era focusing on debutante balls and girls who want husbands to take them away from all the hardships in life.

The mystery at the heart of this story is predictable and didn’t hold any surprise for me.  However, younger readers who like sugary sweet tales with happy endings will savor Debutantes.