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! ( )

When I finished reading ‘Freya’ I wanted to shout out to everyone around me to read it. Why? It is a story of friendship and love, truth and honesty, loyalty and betrayal. Anthony Quinn captures Freya immaculately – he seems to intuit so much women’s stuff so well – so much better than other male novelists recently writing from a female point of view. It is such a refreshing read, I hope it sells loads and wins loads. It deserves it. If you can, read it next.
‘Freya’ is the story of Freya Wyley from VE Day to the 1960s via Oxford, Nuremberg, Italy and mostly London. Recently demobbed from the Wrens, at which she achieved a senior position as bomb plotter in a world with few men, she goes up to Oxford unsure if she is too ‘old’ at the age of 21 to return to study. There she finds that pre-war expectations of women re-apply again and with her customary cussedness she fights against it. With the glimmer of an opportunity, she sets out to get a break as a journalist by interviewing a reclusive war reporter who will be attending the Nuremberg war trials. She calls in a favour from her father, lies, manipulates and bravely goes forth, setting foot into the ruins of the bombed city where she is later told she should not have ventured. But that is Freya: undaunted. She is strong, true, speaks without thinking and gets into trouble because of it. Of course it is the few times in which she is not honest, either with herself or with her best friend Nancy – who she met on the night of VE day when they got ‘stinko’ together – that make the most fascinating reading.
It is a joy to read a female character who is not nice all the time, who feels real, and who I can identify with more than some sugar-sweet modern protagonists. This book fairly fizzes along, read in two days on holiday, I found myself irritated when my Kindle’s battery died because I ignored the ‘battery low’ warning.
Quinn’s sense of time is perfect, he moves seamlessly from wartime to the Sixties. All his characters have depth, flaws and are believable, and his balance of action, contemplation and setting is exact. He covers a wide variety of subjects of the time - morality and art, homosexuality offences, celebrity, political rigour - by simply allowing Freya to investigate and report. The technique of covering Freya’s investigation of an article, followed by the published article, acts as a semi-colon before the next segment of her life.
‘Freya’ is Quinn’s fifth novel. Next, I will read ‘Curtain Call’, his fourth; and I won’t wait long.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ ( )

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...... ( )