Madame Burova Review

"Madame Burova" has spent a lifetime keeping other people's secrets and now, ready for her retirement, has a final task to complete. Spanning fifty years, Ruth Hogan tells a story of the power people have to change each other's lives by simply existing.

General Impressions

I've got to be honest: I don't believe in tarot or people with "the vision" so at first, I expected little more than a forgettable straight romance and a pretty edition to take pictures of. (This proof is *fire*.)

The synopsis made me reevaluate my expectations and a couple of chapters later I was hooked. By the time I finished it, I had long realized I held in my hands one of the most beautiful love letters to friendship and family I have ever read and I will carry this story close to my heart forever.

Madame Burova is set across two timelines. The first in the 1970s where Imelda Burova is about to start her first day as owner of the family booth on the Brighton seafront and the second in present-day London where Billie, recently orphaned, received a letter from her father's lawyer, telling her about her adoption, forty years earlier. In that letter, there is a note from Imelda inviting Billie to contact her.

There are so many characters and timelines that if you are not careful you might get a bit confused but I liked all of them and the themes that the author was able to address through them. Rather than shamelessly presenting us with an England devoid of immigration or diversity (which never existed), Ruth talked about racism, discrimination, sexism, class struggle as well as love, friendship and laughter.

What I loved the most about "Madame Burova" was that nothing was amazing. These are common, honest, conniving, hard-working, privileged people, but all people we meet every day of our lives. Some romances lasted, some didn't, some friendships were true and others revealed themselves to be opportunistic...all these big and small moments that make a life.

This was a book filled with good food, good friends and good music about how the people and community around you make you. Something else I noticed was that everyone and I mean everyone in this story had absolutely wonderful, supportive parents and great groups of friends.

"Madame Burova" is not an example of the world we lost but of the world, we have now if only we want to reach out ou hand (metaphorically of course because covid but you get my gist).

P.S. I'm part of the Shunty Mae fan club forevermore and I want to drink vodka the way the Burova family does.

Rating: 4.5/5