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    Freya: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Freya: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Freya: A Novel
    Ebook610 pages9 hours

    Freya: A Novel

    By Anthony Quinn

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Set immediately after the end of WWII, Freya explores the lives and friendship of two british females at a time where gender roles were changing in England.

    It begins on May 8th, 1945. The streets of London are alive with VE-Day celebrations. In the crowd, twenty-year-old Freya Wyley meets eighteen-year-old Nancy Holdaway. Freya's acerbic wit and free-wheeling politics complement Nancy's gentle, less self-confident nature, and what begins on that eventful day in history is the story of a devoted and competitive friendship that spans two decades.

    This heralded novel follows the irrepressible lives of these young women. As Freya chooses journalism and Nancy realizes her ambitions as a novelist, their friendship explores the nuances of sexual, emotional and professional rivalries. They are not immune to the sting of betrayal and the tenderness of reconciliation.

    Beneath the relentless thrum of changing times are the eternal battles fought by women in pursuit of independence and the search for love. Stretching from the war haunted halls of Oxford and the Nuremburg trials to the cultural transformations of the early 1960s, Freya presents the portraits of extraordinary women taking arms against a sea of political and personal tumult. Anthony Quinn has created an immersive story of female friendship and the self-discoveries that reveal the mysteries of the human heart.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEuropa Editions
    Release dateNov 7, 2017
    ISBN9781609454166
    Unavailable
    Freya: A Novel
    Author

    Anthony Quinn

    Anthony Quinn (b. 1971) is an Irish author and journalist. Born in Northern Ireland’s County Tyrone, Quinn majored in English at Queen’s University, Belfast. After college, he worked a number of odd jobs—social worker, organic gardener, yoga teacher—before finding work as a journalist. He has written short stories for years, winning critical acclaim and, twice, a place on the short list for the Hennessy Literary Awards for New Irish Writing. His book Disappeared was nominated for the Strand Critics Award for Best Debut Novel, and Kirkus Reviews named it to their list of 2012’s Top 10 Best Crime Novels. Quinn also placed as runner-up in a Sunday Timesfood writing competition. Border Angels is his second novel, the sequel to Disappeared, which also features Inspector Celcius Daly. Quinn continues his work as a journalist, reporting on his home county for the Tyrone Times. 

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    Reviews for Freya

    4.5/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Another excellent library selection. I wasn't sure, starting out, what type of novel this was going to be, or whether I would ever warm to Freya, but then either a shared love for Austen with the author or my fevered imagination picked out a connection with Emma and I was hooked. Like reading a twentieth century 'update' of my favourite novel, Freya became Emma Woodhouse, naturally, her friend Nancy was suddenly Harriet Smith, Robert, their shared love interest, was a horrid blend of Robert Martin and Mr Elton, and in Freya's dashing but doomed love interest Alex there was a new twist on Frank Churchill. That leaves Nat Fane as Mr Knightley (or Nancy, doubling roles), but no theory is perfect! However, an interesting line from the end of the book then seemed to confirm my interpretation: 'Though I'd prefer Emma Woodhouse or even Emma Bovary. It's funny how some characters, mere figments on the page, never really die in our heads, or hearts'.Anyway! I did warm to Freya, who was initially too frightfully middle class ('Darling!') and 'a right good chap', or a male author's ideal woman (swears like a trooper and isn't looking to be tied down), to really appeal to me. And then I wondered if there was going to be any kind of plot, ambling from the end of the Second World War and onto the 'dreaming spires' of Oxford, before skipping ahead to London in the 50s and early 60s, but I was pleasantly surprised - and captivated - there too. After leaving university without a degree, Freya becomes a journalist, chasing interesting people and topics (like homosexuality, still considered a crime in the 50s) and constantly getting passed over in favour of her male colleagues, like the odious Robert Cosway. She also suffers various personal upheavals, including parting with 'best friend' Nancy, but her chance acquaintance with Twiggy-esque model Chrissie throws her heart and her head into conflict.Like Emma Woodhouse, I think that Freya will stay with me for a little longer after closing the book. Quinn effortlessly captures the social more and injustices of the forties to the sixties, and his heroine leaps off the page, whether the reader is supportive or despairing of her words and deeds (I'm uncomfortably in the former camp). A worthy take on Austen's 'heroine whom no one but myself will much like', if that's what Quinn actually intended!
    • 5/5
      I have admired Quinn's writing for many years. The Rescue Man, Half the Human Race et al were all in their differing ways, excellent. Freya however takes the top prize and it deserves to win some. The Britain it presents is in many ways long vanished . In others the bigotry and discrimination as well as political corruption is still with us albeit not as obvious. The writing is top notch. We can look at the characters with a wry smile and the benefit of hindsight or do what Quinn enables us to do and be sucked into the times he so ably describes, not really wanting to leave them at the end. Highly recommended and surely one of THE books of 2016 . More please, much, much more......