Before I Met You

September 2, 2013
In Jewell's (After the Party) novel, Betty Dean spent her childhood on the Channel Island of Guernsey dreaming of bigger and better things in London, but she stayed there well into her 20s to care for her ailing grandmother, Arlette. When Arlette dies, Betty's family discovers that she has left a large sum of money to a woman named Clara Pickle at a London address. Nobody in the family has heard of Clara, and what's more, Arlette always claimed to hate the big city. Naturally, Betty jumps at the chance go to London in search of Clara. Though she ends up paying too much for her Soho flat and working a menial job, Betty feels like her life is finally beginning. She strikes up a friendship with rock legend Dom Jonesâwho just happens to be her neighborâand gets a gig babysitting his children to supplement her income. As clues lead her closer to the mysterious Clara Pickle, Betty starts to uncover a chapter of proper, taciturn Arlette's life that she never imagined possibleâcomplete with a tragic love story. Told in chapters that alternate between 1919â21 and 1995, Jewell unfolds each detail of Arlette's secret past with impeccable timing. Although the final reveal is a little convoluted, Arlette's tragedy juxtaposed with Betty's journey to maturity and stability takes readers to emotional highs and lows alike.

September 15, 2013
Who is Clara Pickle? And why has Betty Dean's grandmother left her a large sum of money? British novelist Jewell (After the Party, 2011, etc.) delivers the answers in a drawn-out tale of parallel destinies set in London's Soho. Moving to the island of Guernsey at age 10, Betty Dean meets Arlette Lafolley, her stylish stepgrandmother whom, a decade later, Betty will nurse through the closing chapters of her life. After Arlette dies, Betty learns the older woman has left her a little money, her wonderful vintage clothes and a mystery. The will names a stranger, Clara Pickle, last known at a Soho address, as the recipient of a much larger amount of cash; Betty decides to move to London, find Clara and start her own life. With Betty efficiently established in her new London home, Jewell then sets up the parallel story: Arlette's arrival in the same city in 1919. Arlette's friendships with a portrait painter and a black jazz musician become the subject of Betty's search, narrated in alternating chapters. Betty makes new friends herself, including an attractive DJ/market stall holder and a famous rock musician. Both women are on voyages of discovery, both make mistakes, but whereas Arlette's destiny goes distinctly haywire, Betty not only solves the mystery, but gets her guy as well. A capable romance with fashionable period angles, yet the general impression is perfunctory.

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October 1, 2013
Jewell's many fans should eagerly embrace this story about two different women living in two different times whose lives converge in the most unexpected way. When she is a child, Betty first meets Arlette, her mother's boyfriend's mother, and is instantly swept away by the glamorous 84-year-old in red silk shoes and full-length mink coat. When Betty is 22, Arlette dies. Her will unfolds a mystery that grips Betty, who starts off with a hunt for an unknown recipient of Arlette's bequest. The story bounces back and forth between Betty's 1990s London and Arlette's flapper-era London, the lives of both women slowly unfurling as Jewell keeps the pace steady, the plot intriguing, and the characters highly relatable. Family dynamics, the search for love and personal meaning, and the simple yet evocative daily motions of each woman keep the pages turning. Sure to be a popular title.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)