The Summer Before The War by Helen Simonson

Yes, this is yet another book set in the lead up to WWI set in England. While WWII was devastating to almost all of Europe, England included, it was WWI that shook the British class system to it's core, and which led to the ultimate toppling of the British Empire world wide. While this was inevitable, they did not see it that way, and so books about England on the brink of that war abound. The book got off to a slow start for me, but I did enjoy it and reflecting back on it, I see that some of what I found uncharming about it was in fact the point. The heroine of the story is a charming young woman named Beatrice Nash, who arrives in the seaside town of Rye to serve as Latin teacher to the village's children. She enjoyed what she saw as an idyllic life being all things to her scholarly father--she was his secretary, his travel agent, his companion, and his intellectual equal--all of which ill prepared her to deal with her circumstances after his death. He father, who trusted her with everything in life, chose to tie her hands with a restrictive trust in death, and she is forced to earn her keep and finds herself constrained as all women were in the early 20th century. Beatrice soon falls in with a well-connected local family, the Kents. At the helm is Agatha Kent, who is subtly working to improve women's lot in life, her husband John, who is involved in national security, and her two nephews, one a poet and the other a doctor. The story invites us to look at all the ways that money and title tilted the table at the time, and how it was all going to change both in the short run and the long.