Perhaps I was thinking too much of Streatfeild's children's books (which I have loved for over fifty years) - but I found this book disconcerting in places, and overall a bit disappointing. The characters are well-drawn, if caricatured, but few of them are likeable.

There's really not much story - just the organising of a small dinner party for six very mixed people, and a great deal of introspection, from different viewpoints. It's cleverly written and thought-provoking at times, and I found it very readable. But the ending, although foreshadowed throughout the book, was never really resolved. There's nothing encouraging to look forward to.

I'm glad I read it, as I've been curious about Streatfeild's books for adults for a while, but I'm unlikely to read it again.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2022/01/i-ordered-table-for-six-by-noel.htm... ( )

An interesting read, set in wartime London - with some very perceptive psychological profiling of her characters. Writing style is unusual, with no breakdown into chapters. I can't say I enjoyed it exactly but pleased to have read it (am gradually reading Streatfeild's adult novels) and found her characterisations really interesting. Her setting of wartime, Blitz London is evoked really well; unsurprising as Noel herself was a Warden in London during the Blitz and lost her flat in the bombings. The character profiling and wartime London reach a surprisingly matter-of-fact denouement at the end. I can only describe it as an interesting read. ( )

An remarkable novel about the Blitz, unfortunately out of print (I read a library copy). Streatfeild demonstrates great skill and ingenuity in its narrative construction. The novel is structured around the table of the title, as the ever self-deluded Adela Framley, a society lady fallen on bad times due to her spivvy son, decides to organise a dinner for the American sponsor of her charity work at the height of the Blitz. A series of characters are introduced in kaleidoscopic fashion, and Streatfeild makes good use to of the device to present their self-delusions (the dinner scene is particularly excellent). While it might seem at first sight to conform to the conventions of the comedy of manners, it is perhaps a deeper and more true to life version of it. Even if the theme of divine design in the midst of destruction is somehow shoehorned into the novel, the treatment is not overtly moralistic or sentimental. ( )