The Girl with the Suitcase

Lesley Pearse

A CHANCE meeting in a Lyons Corner House in London during the dangerous days of the wartime Blitz is set to change the life of a young maid from Hampstead in ways she could never have imagined.

Immerse yourself in an emotion-packed tale of love, loss, mistaken identity and new beginnings with The Girl with the Suitcase, the remarkable 33rd novel from Lesley Pearse (pictured below), a master storyteller and one of the nation’s most prolific and best-loved authors.

Over ten million of Pearse’s books have sold worldwide, despite waiting until the age of forty-nine to become a published author. Inspired by real-life tales of courage and adversity, this new historical adventure shows off her writing at its very best. 

Packed with the experiences of those who lived through the Second World War, this is an often hard-hitting story full of intriguing twists and turns. In September of 1940, 26-year-old Elizabeth Manning is enjoying a pot of tea at the Lyons Corner House near Trafalgar Square when she is struck by the arrival of newcomer, Mary Price, a young woman who appears to be nervous about entering a restaurant alone.

Offering her a seat at her table, Elizabeth cannot help but notice how alike in looks the two women are, even though their lives couldn’t be more different. Orphan Elizabeth – who until recently has been managing a dress shop in Richmond – is beautiful, glamorous and charming, and about to set off on a dazzling adventure to Rosslare in Ireland where she has inherited her godmother’s grand house.

Mary, shy and meek, with a troubled childhood and a cruel, abusive stepfather behind her, has nothing to look forward to but her dreary life working all hours as a maid for a married couple in Hampstead.

The two women form an immediate friendship and Elizabeth persuades Mary to go with her to Ireland the following day because ‘an adventure is always more fun if it’s shared.’ But the Blitz is in full swing and when an air raid forces them to take shelter underground, Mary’s life is suddenly changed forever. After waking up in hospital, injured but alive, the nurse mistakes her for Elizabeth, who has died, and hands over her suitcase with Elizabeth’s money and tickets to Ireland inside. This is Mary’s chance to escape the hardship of her life and start afresh. Now calling herself Beth and determined to grab the ‘lifebelt’ she has been given, she decides to step into Elizabeth’s shoes. But what does the future hold when you’re living a lie… because you can’t run from the past forever?

Using her well-honed psychological insight into life’s seemingly endless complexities, Pearse handles disturbing topics like sexual abuse and addiction with her innate sensitivity while painting a vivid portrait of the hopes, fears and struggles of wartime and exploring the moral dilemma facing Mary as she carries the weight and guilt of a deception made at a time of mental and physical turmoil.

And it is Mary’s transformation from a downtrodden, lost soul to confident, reinvented Beth – and her rebirth from a life of poverty, loneliness and ill-treatment to one that allows her to blossom and find true friendships – which lie at the heart of this compelling story.

Weaving between London, Ireland and Bristol, The Girl with the Suitcase is a heartbreaking but also heart-lifting read… gritty, down to earth, brimming with compassion and packed with all those special ingredients that have made Pearse such a readers’ favourite.
(Michael Joseph, hardback, £22)