Lots of reading challenges this year are featuring books from the 1920s.

The Jazz Age, the Bright Young Things and the Lost Generation writers are all back in fashion (if they ever went away). So I have looked through my shelves and picked some of my favourite fiction books that are set in the 1920s.

The Paris Wife

By Paula McLain

Published by Ballantine Books, 2011

A fiction account of the life of Hadley Richardson, first wife of Ernest Hemingway, the book begins with their courtship in 1920. The couple quickly marry and use an inheritance to travel to Paris. Like other American writers of the period, the exchange rate made Paris an affordable place to live. Kind, caring and homely, Hadley never fits in with the hard-drinking Paris crowd. As Hemingway works on The Sun Also Rises their marriage begins to flounder. Ernest’s affair with Pauline Pffeifer looms large. On the whole Hadley is a sympathetic character. She makes some very questionable decisions and tolerates a lot from Hemingway in an attempt to salvage her marriage.

This is an atmospheric novel that recreates a moment in literary history. You can’t help but feel that her relationship with Hemingway is doomed from the offset and a happier future awaits her.

The Paris Wife is available from:

Waterstones: click here

Amazon.co.uk: click here

Bright Young Dead

By Jessica Fellowes

Published by Sphere, 2018

Like The Paris Wife, Bright Young Dead by Jessica Fellowes features real historical icons. But this isn’t a fictional account of historical events, it is a completely original story with some allusion to real events.

Set in 1925, Pamela Mitford is turning 18 and there’s a house party at the Mitford family house, Asthall Manor. A treasure hunt ends in the death of one of the guests and the police identify the killer as Dulcie, one of the maids.

With the help of Pamela and Nancy Louisa Cannon, maid and chaperone to the Mitford sisters, sets out to prove that the killer is someone else and gets drawn in to the world of organised crime.

There’s lots of historical detail and the house party atmosphere is vividly recreated. The Bright Young Things and London club land are seen through the eyes of the Mitford sisters.

This is fun, historical murder mystery. You don’t need to have an interest in the Mitfords to enjoy the story which is interesting and exciting.

This is the second in The Mitford Murders series. I personally enjoyed this more than the first novel. The third installment, The Mitford Scandal, focuses on Diana Mitford, and it’s on my TBR pile.

Bright Young Dead is available from:

Waterstones: click here

Amazon.co.uk: click here

To Davy Jones Below

By Carola Dunn

Published by Constable and Robinson, 2010

There are 23 books in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series.

The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple, a writer, meets and marries Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of over the course of the series in which they work together to solve murder cases. He tries, unsuccessfully, to keep her out of crime investigations because his superiors at the Yard object to her involvement.

Daisy is lively, spirited and independent. She’s fighting against society’s expectations of women of her class. She’s warm and friendly and has habit of being in the right place at the right time. She notices things that Alec doesn’t and people warm to her and tell her things.

In this book, Alec and Daisy are heading on a working honeymoon on board a liner headed to America. Intrigue and accidents end with the death of one of the guests and before you know it they are embroiled in an investigation.

This is a great series – I haven’t yet read them all. Each is a stand alone mystery so they don’t need to be read in order.

The relationship between Daisy and Alex develops throughout the series and there are a number of reoccurring characters that the reader gets to know. It’s a great series and I definitely recommend them if you are a fan of historical novels or mysteries.

To Davy Jones Below is available from:

Waterstones: click here

Amazon.co.uk: click here