Secrets of a Charmed Life

Secrets of a Charmed Life is a historical fiction novel written by Susan Meissner and published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Random House, in 2015. The book follows two sisters in wartime England, Emmeline and Julia Downtree, who are separated from each other during the Blitz. The book also follows an interview between American Oxford student Kendra Van Zant and Blitz survivor and artist Isabel MacFarland. The novel explores the themes of The Impact of War on Personal Destinies, The Conflict Between Personal Ambition and Responsibility, and The Resilience of the Human Spirit in the Face of Loss and Adversity. Other historical fiction novels by Meissner include The Shape of Mercy (2008), White Picket Fences (2009), Lady in Waiting (2010), and A Fall of Marigolds (2014).

This study guide uses the 2015 New American Library paperback edition.

Content Warning: This novel contains themes of war, loss, and separation, including trauma. There are also brief and sometimes gory descriptions of dead bodies, as well as references to pet euthanasia and suicidal ideation.

Plot Summary

In modern-day England, American Oxford student Kendra Van Zant goes to Gloucestershire to interview 93-year-old Blitz survivor and painter Isabel MacFarland for a history essay in the hope it will be featured in the newspaper on Victory in Europe (VE) Day. Isabel reveals that her name is not Isabel, and she is not 93. She then begins the story in 1940 London, with 15-year-old Emmeline “Emmy” Downtree looking through the broken window of Primrose Bridal. Wanting to turn her sketches into real dresses, she applies to work there while helping the shop owner, Mrs. Eloise Crofton, clean the broken glass. She sets up an appointment and, after picking one of her mother's dresses, goes to the shop.

Emmy impresses Mrs. Crofton with her hand-sewing and dress-designing skills, so Mrs. Crofton offers to teach her sewing before giving her the job. She also plans to contact her cousin and have him train Emmy. Emmy wonders about who will care for Julia while she and their single mother, Annie, work. When Annie gets home from her job as a kitchen maid, they argue about Annie’s possible engagement in sex work to support the family and Emmy’s employment, which Annie fears will make it difficult to find care for Julia. Soon after, Julia’s estranged father dies, and Annie gives Emmy an evacuation order for London’s children. Emmy begrudgingly lets Mrs. Crofton know but promises to return to London soon.

At Julia’s school, Emmy and Annie part on poor terms, and Emmy and Julia are taken by train to Moreton-in-Marsh. After the two are rejected by a couple who did not want to take both sisters, Charlotte Havelock offers to take them. At her home, Thistle House in Stow-on-the-Wold, they settle into a routine. Charlotte quickly becomes a supportive aunt and even motherly figure for the sisters. However, when Emmy gets an appointment with Mrs. Crofton’s cousin Graham Dabney on Saturday, September 7, she decides to leave. Julia finds out and confronts her before telling Emmy to take her with her. Emmy relents, and, early that morning, they leave for London.

In London, Emmy leaves Julia at their flat and goes to her appointment. To her horror, she discovers that Julia switched out her brides box with a fairy-tale book. After she explains this to Mrs. Crofton and Mr. and Mrs. Dabney, they give her until Monday to get the sketches and come with her mother, so she can travel with Mr. Dabney to Edinburgh on Tuesday. As she goes to tell Annie, though, she learns her mother left work early. The Luftwaffe then start dropping bombs, and Emmy is forced to find shelter as she heads to the flat. Once she reaches it, she does not see her mother or Julia. Annie returns, but Julia does not. After searching for Julia and discussing Emmy’s desire to make her mother proud, her mother tells her it is not her fault that Julia is missing. Annie leaves to get help from someone with money. Even though Emmy waits several days for her mother and Julia, they do not return.

On Wednesday, Emmy goes and finds the casualty listings, where she sees her mother’s name. After learning where her mother’s body is, Emmy goes to Primrose Bridal and, in Mrs. Crofton’s absence, decides to focus on finding Julia. To avoid social services, she takes on the identity of Mrs. Crofton’s deceased 18-year-old daughter, Isabel Crofton. As Isabel, Emmy helps the Women’s Volunteer service (WVS) and works with journalists while she searches for Julia. When bombs destroy Primrose Bridal, she has her American journalist friend Jonah “Mac” MacFarland take her to Thistle House. There, she reconnects with Charlotte, bonds with her disabled sister Rose and two fellow London evacuees and helps them during the war.

In February 1945, she gets a letter telling her that she inherited 30,000 pounds from her father, Henry Thorne. When she collects the inheritance, she seeks answers, and his lawyer tells her he was an unhappily married man and her mother was his 16-year-old maid. They fell in love with each other, but Annie got pregnant. Since Henry could not leave his wife, he paid for Annie’s flat and her and Emmy’s care. Emmy discovers that her father died with Annie at the Sharington Crescent Hotel. Emmy is driven to meet Henry’s wife, Agnes Thorne, who berates her.

Though her half-brother Colin defends her, Emmy gives back the inheritance check and leaves. She has the driver take her to the bar she and Mac frequent, and after dinner and a dance, they stay the night at the hotel. When she wakes up from a nightmare, they have sex, and the next morning, Mac tells Emmy he wants to marry her. She declines and returns to Thistle House. After becoming pregnant, Charlotte encourages her not to be afraid to be happy and to start a new life with Mac, whom she loves. She marries him, and they move to his native Minnesota, where she has their daughter, Gwen. In 1958, Emmy receives a posthumous letter from Charlotte, giving her Thistle House as an inheritance and revealing that she blamed herself for Rose’s disabling injury because she let her swim in a lake alone. She determines that it was not all her fault and encourages Emmy to also forgive herself. Isabel tells Mac the full truth about her identity, which temporarily strains their marriage. She goes with Gwen to visit Thistle House until Mac joins them, and then they stay there.

Isabel gives Kendra a journal showing why they stayed. In the journal, Julia had written entries to confront her grief over losing Emmy and her trauma from the Blitz. In them, she details her selective mutism for the first five years after the Blitz and her struggle with bullying. She also reveals that she was found in the flat by Thea after the bombing started, and they stayed in her bomb shelter until she found the letter about Neville’s death, at which point Thea took Julia to Neville’s parents. Julia’s grandparents then took her from Oxford, England, to Connecticut  after learning about her mother’s death and being unable to find Emmy. Over the years, she consulted therapists and started confronting her trauma by visiting, and eventually moving back to, London. There, she met her boyfriend, Simon. She starts a plan to retrieve the brides box from Charlotte’s house and eventually finds the house, but not the box. However, Isabel’s daughter, Gwen, found it after seeing it in her room, previously Rose’s room.

Julia has one of the sketches made into a wedding dress for her wedding to Simon. At the fitting, she feels her sister’s presence and is finally able to forgive herself and move forward. Shortly after her wedding, Isabel recognizes the dress in a newspaper Mac shows her and recognizes the bride as Julia. He brings Julia to Thistle House and the two sisters reunite, their families living happily together until Julia’s death from breast cancer and Simon’s death a few years before the interview. Kendra and Isabel conclude the interview, and Isabel asserts that Kendra can get her essay into the newspaper. Kendra then joins Isabel for her 93^rd birthday party.