The Marriage Bureau, Penrose Halson
The Marriage Bureau, Penrose Halson
List: $21.99 | Sale: $15.39
Club: $10.99

The Marriage Bureau
The True Story of How Two Matchmakers Arranged Love in Wartime London

Author: Penrose Halson

Narrator: Jane Copland

Unabridged: 7 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 05/02/2017

Synopsis

A riveting glimpse of life and love during and after World War II—a heart-warming, touching, and thoroughly absorbing true story of a world gone by.In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined twenty-four-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London’s Bond Street and set about the delicate business of matchmaking. Drawing on the bureau’s extensive archives, Penrose Halson—who many years later found herself the proprietor of the bureau—tells their story, and those of their clients. From shop girls to debutantes; widowers to war veterans, clients came in search of security, social acceptance, or simply love. And thanks to the meticulous organization and astute intuition of the Bureau’s matchmakers, most found what they were looking for. Penrose Halson draws from newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, and interviews with the proprietors themselves to bring the romance and heartbreak of matchmaking during wartime to vivid, often hilarious, life in this unforgettable story of a most unusual business.“A book full of charm and hilarity.”—Country Life

About Penrose Halson

PENROSE HALSON has been a teacher, an editor and a writer. She was first a client and later, beginning in 1986, the proprietor of the Katharine Allen Marriage & Advice Bureau, with which Heather Jenner’s agency had by then merged. She is the author of Happily Ever After: How to Meet Your Match. Penrose is married and lives in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Shelly on June 22, 2017

Entertaining non-fiction that reads as fiction. I liked that it was more of a breezy read and not heavy non-fiction, but the way it was written made me wonder how much was fact and how much was the imagination of the author.......more

Goodreads review by Christina on October 31, 2017

This was a great, fast read about two enterprising young women who started a matchmaking service in 1939 for lonely-hearted British men and women. Their clients ranged from members of the aristocracy to ordinary working class people and the descriptions of some of the matches made are quite entertai......more

Goodreads review by Penny on August 16, 2016

I love Social History and looked forward to reading this - I was curious to see how a Marriage Bureau ever got going in 1940s England. The first part was interesting although I rapidly got tired of being repeatedly told how tall, cool and gorgeously blonde Heather was and how petite, vivacious and da......more

Goodreads review by Laurie on June 03, 2017

I love historical fictional from the WWII genre and found The Marriage Bureau a very interesting read ... the original concept of 'match.com!' Thank you for the galley!......more

Goodreads review by Kris on May 28, 2017

Interesting subject matter and was intrigued with this book because I had no idea that there was such a real business as this Marriage Bureau. It is a 1930s pre "online dating" concept. But the book was poorly written. It bored me after awhile.......more

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