Miss Aldridge Regrets is a wonderful historical novel wrapped up with a murder mystery, written by Louise Hare.
It is 1936 and Lena Aldridge is working as singer in a basement club in Soho. Her father Alfie has recently passed and Lena is feeling alone, after she breaks it off with her married lover. Her best friend Maggie, is stuck in an unhappy marriage. Maggie's husband owns the the club Lena sings in. He is unfaithful and Lena cannot stand up for Maggie because she is afraid to loose her job.
Lena's life is complicated by here mixed race racial heritage passing for white. When mysterious invitation is offered to her to sail to America to star in a play on Broadway she is ready to leave. Traveling in first class on the Queen Mary to New York, things get more complicated when one of the party she is traveling with is murdered.
Beautifully written, Hare lets the reader imagine you are on the Queen Mary sailing across the ocean. Giving the reader a good historical view of the lifestyle of that time period and the feelings of how people prejudices look at white and black people. How mixed race people would try to pass for an easier life.
Also this is a entertaining mystery novel, with some great twists and turns leaving confused about the murder until the end.
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