Flappers

It's in the bringing together of these highly diverse women under the 'flapper' umbrella that Mackrell's real genius lies, showing us the relationship between an age and the very different individuals who shone during it. -- Lesley McDowell * Independent on Sunday * Hugely entertaining . . . in bringing these fascinating women back to life, she reminds today's women that our own lives would be very different without the trails their generation blazed. * Irish Times * Mackrell interweaves these intense lives with rich detail of their wider worlds . . . she writes beautifully, peppering her prose with their sly one-liners and her own insights, while maintaining a pace as swift as the exhausting lives she describes. -- Sunday Express * Kate Colquhoun * Erudite and detailed * Spectator * Informative and deeply moving ... The strength of this compelling book derives from the cumulative effect of so much pain and suffering endured by these once hopeful young pioneering women -- Anne Sebba * Literary Review * Engaging -- Amanda Foreman * Mail on Sunday * Judith Mackrell's group biography of six women of the Roaring Twenties is a terrific read. -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail * Scintillating ... Mackrell is clever at painting the subtly complex picture of these women's lives from giddy high spirits to steadfast obstinacy, from emotional fragility to creative focus and weaving them together against a backdrop that is also writ clear. This enthralling, elegant book conjures up all the glamour and razzmatazz but never flinches from the caverns of pain beneath. -- Caroline Jowett * Daily Express * Offers a way to look beyond the cliches of the Roaring Twenties into what was actually going on in these women's heads. Mackrell - who writes with great brio - shows us the uncertainly and confusion that often lay behind the brittle artifice. -- Bee Wilson * Sunday Times * Flappers is all good, dirty fun . . . Mackrell is an engaging storyteller with a deceptively light touch -- Cressida Connolly * Sunday Telegraph *