After three books, the house in Hampstead feels wonderfully familiar. Since the long ago days when it provided sanctuary for suffragettes, it has been a place of safety and refuge. I loved how Victory made it feel as if those who had passed through its doors were still present. Florrie's photograph is still in the house. Noel imagines Ida scrubbing the floors and realises that they have probably used the same potato peeler. Someone looks at Noel and remarks that he is very like Mattie. These characters feel like old friends. I would love to think that one day we will see them again. Noel has the makings of a fine young man, gifted in all subjects and a whizz in the kitchen to boot. Seeing him sweetly befuzzled by his letter from the lovely Genevieve Lumb from next door though reminds us that he still has lots of growing up to be done and many adventures ahead. But I think that he may have just walked off into the sunset and that is fine too. Lissa Evans has a keen eye for social context, cleverly weaving into the narrative details about the realities of life for working class women in the 1920s. Burdened down with too many mouths to feed on a pittance; ignorant of basic principles about disease and health; confined to house and hearth with few opportunities to find a better life. Mattie is so single focused in her fight against political inequalities she is oblivious to these social inequalities. It’s The Flea, who as a health worker, witnesses poverty and the resulting ill health every day. Instead of slogans and sashes, she offers practical help on hygiene and nutrition, gently trying to nudge the women to adopt her advice.

I listened to this book on audiobook narrated by Joanna Scanlan, and I highly recommend this method of reading this book as Joanna just impersonated the character of Mattie so so well, and if there was ever to be a movie made of this book, she is the only person who could play Mattie. Mattie was once a fearless warrior in the fight for a woman’s right to vote. In the early 1900s she stormed the barricades, protested outside Parliament, smashed windows and ended up in prison five times. It’s now 1928; the heady excitement of those days is over and the band of women with whom she marched and sang are scattered to the four winds.The problem for me lies in the characters. Noel initially refuses to talk, Vee's mother can't talk, and her son is never around to talk. The characters carry on in their own orbits, sometimes not even circling the same planet. Other books that employ multiple perspectives and parallel narratives draw you in with well-developed characters, each with his/her own internal struggles and moral dilemmas. Not so in this case. We know so little about Vee's mother and son that we can neither empathize with nor understand their erratic behavior. They show no concern others, and I really felt no concern for them. They each had their own story arc, but honestly, the book would have been just as good (or bad) without them. Noel tried hold on to his home and his way of life, but the encroaching war, and there own wish to not be too involved, led his new guardians to send him as an evacuee, to the relative safety of nearby St Alban’s.

But upon discovering a wooden club in an old bag, she wonders perhaps if there is still not more to do and can you still be idealistic and principled ten years after the main event.Noel’s mourning his godmother Mattie, a former suffragette. Wise beyond his years, raised with a disdain for authority and an eclectic attitude toward education, he has little in common with other children and even less with the impulsive Vee, who hurtles from one self-made crisis to the next. The war’s provided unprecedented opportunities for making money, but what Vee needs—and what she’s never had—is a cool head and the ability to make a plan.

The year is 1928 and the vote has finally been given to all women 21 or older. Mattie, was one of the Suffragettes, remembers well their mistreatment at the hands of the police. Remembers being thrown in jail, the hunger strikes and all the nasty newspaper articles. Yes, she is much older now, but doesn't rest on her laurels, rather she travels and gives speeches about the Suffragette movement, complete with slides. A chance encounter with a past comrade in arms, has Mattie starting a club for teenage girls. She wants the new women prepared to take on any challanges they will face. A new member of the club will bring Mattie face to face with her past, and cause her to almost lose one dearest to her. It's 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across an old wooden club - an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade. The day after that, all the children disappeared, as if London had shrugged and the small people had fallen off the edge.’ Vee and Noel are living in a tumultuous time. London is being bombed repeatedly by Hitler. How do you adapt to that terror? The Allies are closer to victory, but the days are long. Vee believes she only has one life to live no matter what she’s wading through with the war. The characterisation in Crooked Heart, is just superb – and it occurred to me while reading how visual this novel is (if that makes sense). The author quite obviously binging her experience of working in film and television to her writing.The right was granted, under rather stringent conditions, in 1918 in the exhausted aftermath of World War I. At which point the movement towards women’s equality collapsed. (If this sounds familiar, let’s just say the pattern repeats). As the story begins, it’s 1928. Mattie is in her late 50s, and while she may not think of herself as old, it’s clear that others around her do. (I found this poignant and ironic at the same time as I’m older than Mattie but don’t see myself that way at all. It’s true that “old” starts at least 15 years past one’s own age) Old Baggage, can mean different things to different people. It can be used as a description of some older lady, past her prime and of no use to anyone or society. It can be the baggage we bring from the past into the present. It can be actual tangible items, it can be thoughts, emotions and feelings. It can simply be an old bag with treasures inside that has sat unopened for a long time. Evans is funny, too, with Noel’s burgeoning relationship with a young girl next door a highlight: “He re-read the Christmas card he’d received from Genevieve Lumb, which she had signed with five Xs. He remained a little troubled by the message, which mentioned that she was spending Christmas ‘with my cousins Andrew, Lloyd and Alistair. Alistair had just won the South of England under-16s long-jump trophy, although, as you know, I don’t care much about sports’.”