THE SECRET LIFE OF VIOLET GRANT by Beatriz Williams

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this novel. It was a Goodreads top read for 2014 and I must say I was a little sceptical at first. The blurb on the back wasn't that inspiring, but I figured with 70% of the Goodreads readers giving it four stars or above it had to be a goer. And  it really is!

Two stories are running parallel - in 1964 New York, young graduate Vivian is bored in her new job as a fact checker for a magazine. Despite her wealthy and  privileged background, she is starting at the bottom, and very keen to work herself up the ladder as fast as she can. She is ballsy,  awesomely articulate, loads of personality and ambition. Her life changes completely on a Saturday when her roommate tells her there is a parcel waiting at the local post shop for her collect - a suitcase as it happens, and an encounter with a young man in the queue.

In alternate chapters is the story of Violet. Her story begins in 1912. She also is not typical of young women of her time, having escaped her own suffocating privileged background to further study physics at Oxford university. She quickly falls under the spell of her famous professor and so begins her story. Much of Violet's story is set with the beginnings of WWI as a backdrop, moving from Oxford to Berlin, Switzerland and finally Paris. Vivian's  receipt of the suitcase and its mysterious contents and origins leads her inevitably to Violet's story.

Both stories are really good, both young women rebelling against their expected roles, both trying to survive in tough surroundings, and both shining through. The two women are quite different, and I was really impressed with how the author created two entirely different personalities in Vivian and Violet, and how both women changed and grew during the course of the story. Plus you are on your seat right to the very end, to a most satisfying conclusion for all involved.