Pick Lock Publishing, 1 June 2026
Available as: PB, 364pp, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781068337987
I'm grateful to Anne for sending me a copy of Wonderful to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.
Wonderful is published on what would have been Marilyn Monroe's hundredth birthday.
As the book opens, two women are finding new homes. In 1960s Hollywood, Marilyn is looking to buy a place that can be a retreat for her. In 2016, in Hull, Flora is moving to a flat that’s even more depressing than her last.
The book will continue to tell the stories of Marilyn and Flora, showing up similarities in their lives and also, eventually, some unlikely connections. Across the years these two women form an unlikely bond as Marilyn struggles for freedom and Flora tries to build a life, protect her sister, and overcome dark events from her early years.
Monroe, born Norma Jean and also with a troubled earlier life, has created a persona which has delivered her success as an actress, but living it is taking an increasing toll and she feels trapped. This can’t end well, as we know from tragic history, but Beech sensitively avoids cliches in giving us Marilyn’s own reflections on her life and her plans for the future.
In Hull, Flora has also led a difficult life, quite how difficult we don’t learn till the end of the book. In her present, though, she’s focussed on the welfare of her sister, about to be released from a psychiatric ward. The relationship between the sisters, while not cosy, is very moving. Essentially they’re all each other has, their mother being around but little help. The emotional heart of the book is this relationship, one which leaves Flora little space or time for a possible romance growing with Neil, an aspiring magician who sometimes appears in the club where Flora works.
All this, and the Blessed Virgin Mary too! This perhaps unlikely figure appears to a number of women in the book, bringing a nosy journalist in her wake but also pointing to futures for some of them. Something is being built, something to support women’s autonomy and safety. Both Flora and Marilyn will play their parts.
As ever in Beech’s books, this is a story told from below, from the perspective of the underdog. Characteristically the action comes together in Hull, described as “the end of the line”, a contrast to the glitzy background of Monroe’s Hollywood (even if this has become a place she can’t set foot unless disguised) yet - across all Beech's books, a place of possibilities, growth and authenticity. Characteristically, too, this works, both on a story and an emotional level as the sheer grind of everyday life is transmuted into a struggle to understand one’s past, however dark, and realise one’s potential.
I love Beech’s books and this one fully lived up to my expectations. The book is hard reading, at times. Not everyone here is always perfect, or even always likeable. But there is a willingness to work, to build that future, that makes every page a treat.
An article I was reading the other day focussed on how resourceful Monroe was, setting up her own production company and using the law to obtain a measure of control from her studio. Beech’s nuanced portrayal captures this, as she surveys her future.
For more information about Wonderful, see the author's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below.
You can buy Wonderful from your local high street bookshop or online from Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, Waterstones, WH Smiths (always Smith's, there is no Jones) or Amazon.
No comments:
Post a Comment