The Excitements by C.J. Wray

A brilliant and witty drama about two elderly female World War II veterans with a secret past who embark on one last adventure to right some historic wrongs.
 

Meet the Williamson sisters, Britain’s most beloved World War II veterans. Now in their late nineties, Josephine and Penny are in huge demand, beloved of journalists and producers, popping up on red carpets and at fundraisers and festivals all over the country. Despite their age, they’re still in great form—perfectly put together, sprightly and sparky, and always in search of their next “excitement.”
 

This time it’s a trip to Paris to receive the Légion d’Honneur for their part in liberating France. As always, they will be accompanied by their devoted gay nephew, Archie, who moved in with his aunts right after he came out. The press has always reported that these lady heroes worked for the Royal Navy and the nursing corps, but that’s their official cover. In reality, Josephine was an intelligence operative who drew maps used for the D-Day invasion while Penny was a spy and specialist at hand-to-combat, risking her teenage life in France. And this trip to Paris is not what it seems either. Scandal and crime have always quietly trailed the Williamson sisters, even in the decades after the war.
 

Now armed with new information about an old adversary, these much decorated (but admittedly ancient) veterans intend to settle scores, avenge lost friends, and pull off one last, daring heist before the curtain finally comes down on their illustrious careers.
 

A deliciously fast-paced and witty drama, The Excitements is the tale of two remarkably clever and brave women who helped save the world and survived the unthinkable, without ever losing their killer instinct... or their joie de vivre.

CJ Wray’s (pseudonym for Christine Manby) The Excitements is a textbook case of a publishing firm doing a fantastic job of marketing and writing a synopsis for a book that is considerably more interesting than the actual book itself. The Excitements has a lot of different elements that feels like they’re going in all different directions with little thematic cohesion or planning. Worse, the actual story is bland, consistently underwhelming (when it’s not being comically unrealistic), and overall poorly crafted. I don’t remember how this ended up on my to-read list (perhaps because it features senior female characters, an accidental trend I’ve been on this year), but I certainly am questioning my past choices and do not recommend this one at all, even if you like cozy historical fiction books.

Perhaps it partly on my end for reading too far into the synopsis, but I truly feel like I was betrayed by The Excitement’s marketing that summarizes “Scandal and crime… veterans intend to settle scores, avenge lost friends, and pull off one last daring heist before the curtain finally comes down on their illustrious careers”. To be frank, the “scandals” and “crimes” are used very loosely here, with the scandal involving a (very light) romance and at least in the USA, a minor felony at best (really just shoplifting). An obvious exaggeration, settling scores and avenging lost friends also is a stretch and illustrious careers feels like a purposeful misdirection. When I read that kind of summary, I was expecting some type of spy or covert operative movements for both sisters or some kind of senior citizen comical adventure romp. In reality, there are only light elements of that in one sister and not the other, and the story could’ve almost entirely worked if it had only focused on Aunty Penny considering Aunt Josephine had such little relevance to the story.

Marketing aside, my biggest issue with The Excitements is its plot and approach at throwing a dozen random plot threads at the wall to see what sticks. Part historical fiction, the first third of the novel mainly focuses on Penny and Josephine’s experiences during WWII via the British Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS) and First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), historical elements I was not previously familiar with as an American. Despite being merely surface level in detail and narrative experiences, this section is the strongest and most cohesive section of the book that feels the best researched and inspired. The sisters’ upbringing and extended stay in France provides an important framework for their French mannerisms and patriotism in WWII and is clearly the inspiration for the novel as confirmed by Wray’s acknowledgements section. The problem is that the historical fiction elements stop there once WWII ends and the book loses its direction.

Beyond the two sisters’ contributions via WRNS and FANY, one sister joins an undercover operative operation while the other basically disappears from the story completely for decades. There’s also plot elements involving this training that ultimately doesn’t go anywhere, the “crimes” that are essentially just misdemeanors, some discoveries that imply certain characters sacrificed others in the past, etc. While this doesn’t necessarily sound too bad on paper, actually reading these events left me completely baffled and amused. The story quite literally feels like Wray is making things up as she goes along with non-existent foreshadowing, no setup, and herky jerky jumps as these past events are told out of chronological order and not even thematically coupled. I fail to see how any of Penny’s post-WWII crimes has anything to do with her stint in WRNS and the event inspiring her supposed “revenge” doesn’t even happen until two thirds into the book. Meanwhile Josephine’s story consists of a very brief romance (in terms of actual pages devoted to it), absence of notable activity for years while her sister is actively doing supposed crime and military things, only for her resolution to pop-up in a random chapter near the very end of the book in the middle of a peak hostage situation, having absolutely no relevance to the situation and derailing what little momentum the book had going (I guess it’s a life flashing before your eyes moment?).

Worse off, the entire read is quite boring and uneventful largely due to the absence of a notable conflict or mystery. The story is told via 3rd person omniscient in the present day as Archie is preparing to escort his two grand aunts to an honorary ceremony in France for their War contributions. The present day events mostly feel like the characters are wandering around killing time with nothing of real value, neither building interest in the story nor providing comic relief. The “heist” isn’t introduced as a concept until over half-way through the book, at which point I imagine many readers already DNF-ed based on the reception of other reviews. There’s a bit of a mystery involving Penny’s interest in an emerald ring, its background, and its appearance at a fundraising gala occurring the same day as the sisters award ceremony, but again this has almost nothing to do with any of the historical WWII elements at all (where the ring came from is the sole connection). I hesitate to even call it a last heist considering Archie and Aunt Josephine have no idea about it at all and the entire story arc gets even more laughable once a random gunman decides to hijack the event. You would think the book would tie this gunman’s hijacking either back to the emerald ring, the invasion of the WWII Nazis, WRNS/FANY, something the book introduced previously. No, the gunman instead threatens to shoot people at random in return for the release of political prisoners that has absolutely nothing to do with WWII since this is in the present day. He is also exacting revenge on a named attendee at the fundraising event who got rich at the expense of his country/land and people. Do we know what country/land or people these are? No. Do we know how this guy who we’re introduced to in a single page earlier in the evening got rich? No. Baffled yet, I sure was. I assume this entire sequence was introduced in order to give the two sisters an opportunity to save the day but its execution is so random and out of place, it’s actually quite unintentionally funny. There are so many redirections, plot surprises or misdirections that come off as something Wray came up with on the spot, the whole reading experience is hilariously nonsensical (note, this is not an absurdist or satirical piece purposefully doing that).

I’m the type of reader who immerses myself in the story but the closer I read, I noticed more and more plot holes and the read went from boring and inoffensive, to mediocre and puzzling fast. Aunty Penny steals a crystal elephant from a jewelry store at the beginning of the story as “practice” for her later planned heist despite not knowing she was even going to Paris in the first place (she learns about the trip later that day and even then is against going to Paris despite preparing anyway?). Penny becomes a pro at self-defense and outshines all the other recruits in section F after only reading a self-help self-defense book as a teenager? A gunman is taken down by simply being hit by a metal matchbox, how exactly is that a weapon? Penny confuses the pain of a heart attack with the discomfort of something being stuck in her throat when she puts it there herself? Archie tries to flex his biceps to one-up Malcolm despite it being a formal event with men wearing suits that wouldn’t show muscles anyway? Josephine is also 98 while Penny is 97 yet they can walk without assistance, travel, and even attempt to make a getaway at their age? I have grandparents that are in their mid/early 90’s and from my experiences working with the elderly for my day job, that just isn’t believable at all no matter how spry they are. It really didn’t take long for the book to go from boring to bizarre to sheer comedy for all the wrong reasons. I started to enjoy the book as soon as I stopped taking it seriously and tried to predict what ridiculous random plot element it was going to throw in next.

What makes the entire reading experience worse is how bland the characterization is for all the characters; good characters definitely could’ve half salvaged this book. The sisters’ grand nephew Archie has paper thin characterization except for the fact that he’s gay (which also has nothing to do with anything except for his old crush on Stephane, the host of the Parisian fundraiser). Side characters that pop-up throughout the two sisters’ lives also quite literally pop-up with little introduction, only to be killed off or to betray another character pages later with the sisters reacting dramatically. It’s a recurring trend that the book makes a great deal of effort to say how overwhelmed the sisters are, but the emotional reaction is entirely unearned and not setup. Each side character is also given such little time or introduction, half the time I struggled to remember what each character was notable for when they popped up again later in the story (again, made worse by the events being relived out of order). The present day events also have two additional seniors Davina Mackenzie and Sister Eugina who are also being honored at the event in Paris. I could not figure what role they were supposed to serve as they did not provide comedic relief, they did not add depth to either sister’s backstory, they certainly had nothing to do with any of the “crimes” or “scandals”, and their only contribution was reading morse code on a tv news broadcast of the gunman hijacking the fundraiser. As the book moves to its conclusion and epilogue, characters do 180 personality changes to secure a happily ever after with no character development to warrant the changes. Davina Mackenzie suddenly isn’t full of herself, Archie’s past flame Stephane suddenly rejects his fiancé over the course of a few hours (I know some of the queer community can move fast but that’s quite extreme), a soldier named Jerome who constantly undermines Penny suddenly has a moment of enlightening and respects her on the last day of training, and the sisters have such close camaraderie despite not being honest with each other for decades.

On top of poor characterization, the dialogue varies from passable to laughably awkward at times. A hallmark choice quote:

(Gunman speaking during the takeover) “No. No, not you. I will spare this… invertebrate. But I want his replacement to send a proper message about strength and bravery. So, worm, you can join the rest of the audience…” Is this supposed to be threatening or dramatic? What is this even?

While Penny and Josephine’s dialogue is generally decent, as a man also in his 30’s Archie’s dialogue is completely unnatural for a man his age (regardless of his sexuality I should add) and in general, male characters across the board sound off in mannerisms. Both sisters also end many of their sentences with basic French terms and slangs and while this may just be me being an American reader, I personally found the way the French phrases were included to be quite cringy and a caricature instead of feeling authentic. However, my criticisms of the dialogue obviously only apply to when characters actually talk, which is quite little. A good portion of the book’s writing is just “she did this, she did that, she thought this, she thought that, she felt this” with very little introspection or dialogue between characters.

All in all this was a baffling read and an overall poorly executed book. There were some great ideas and concepts individually but the effort to connect them (if at all) was poor and needed better transitions. I don’t know what I was hoping for with this book but I certainly didn’t get it as this not funny (at least intentionally anyway), the light romance and character drama did not have proper setup, the present day senior citizen moments were not particularly charming, this was just a slow mess of loose topics knotted together that really needed extensive editing to be presentable. At least it was relatively short and quick to read, but if that’s the best thing a book has going for it, I might as well read a novella that doesn’t get lost in its own story right out of the gate. I guess it would make a passable coffee table décor book with its nice cover and casual tone; a cover that also features both women in elegant flowing gowns that both would never be caught dead in (the William Morrow cover for the English releases, the Dutch cover is far more appropriate).