I always love reading about strong female voices, so to get to know and love four incredible characters made this book so gratifying to read. I was immediately immersed in each girls' thoughts and feelings and found myself caring deeply about their stories as if they were my own friends. The captivating and rich atmosphere of Oxford University in the 1920s mixed with profound explorations of sisterhood and feminism make this awe-inspiring debut one you should not miss.

1920 women at Oxford receive degrees. What a marvellous story about women striving to be recognised and the after effects of WW1. Four women with very different backgrounds are thrown together in the halls of residence. Dora who is mourning the death of her brother George and her fiance Charles, she has come to Oxford in place of her dead brother. Beatrice a very tall, imposing woman who is the daughter of a famous Suffragette , Marianne, the daughter of a Vicar is secretive and emotional, Otto is a rich girl with an exciting social life and a ready wit. Although from different backgrounds the girls are thrown together as they must battle against the men who torment and belittle them. Most of the time they can defend themselves but as lecturers sometimes bar them from lectures it can be a struggle, if they with to leave the university they must be accompanied by a guardian and fraternising with the opposite sex is carefully monitored. The injuries and death of soldiers in the war is relived in all of the girl's past lives. The war is vividly bought to life as disabled and shell shocked students react to sudden noises. Spanish flu arrives on the campus and Marianne catches it, she is nursed by the other three and can finally visit her Father. Dora has a shock when she recognises someone in a lecture leading to a breakdown.The friendship and support of the group is heartening. All of the women keep secrets which are eventually exposed. The authors love of Oxford and her descriptions are engaging. Thank you Joanna, NetGalley and Penguin for this ARC

This is historical fiction at its best, full of historical detail but never bogged down by it, and a thoroughly entertaining read featuring four women who I fell in love with. Set in 1920, the book follows four women in the first female cohort admitted as full members of Oxford University and allowed to take degrees. Beatrice, Marianne, Dora and Otto arrive at St Hughs and all have rooms on Corridor Eight. Despite considerable differences in both background and outlook they become the firmest of friends as they learn to navigate this male-dominated environment, and all the challenges that presents, as well as to live in a country still coming to terms with the irrevocable changes wrought by World War I. As we follow them through the academic year, we learn more about the women and you will take each of them to your heart as you learn how the war has impacted them and the individual challenges they have faced - and in some cases, the secrets they keep. This is a book that resonated personally with me as Miller brilliantly brings to life Oxford, the town where I was a student and where many of the university traditions mentioned still continue to this day - and the story also features Berkhamsted, the town where I currently live. But what makes this book such a delight is that Miller brilliantly combines a well-researched and fascinating snapshot of the time, a key moment in women’s history, with four characters who it is a joy to get to know. I loved these women, I loved their determination and resilience - and am grateful for the path they forged. But most of all I loved their relationship, a true testament to the power of female friendship.

Oxford University, 1920 - the first time women have been allowed to matriculate and gain degrees. Four women from very different backgrounds move into corridor eight of St Hugh's College and become good friends, helping each other to deal with past traumas and present challenges over the course of their first year. What a brilliant book, I absolutely loved it! The author does a magnificent job of combining fascinating historical detail with a page-turning plot and I couldn't put it down. Loved the four women - Dora, Beatrice, Otto and Madeleine - and the different perspectives they brought to the story... but most of all their friendship. Amazing - can we have a series please?! Very VERY highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book.

The Eights by Joanna Miller I pre-ordered this book as soon as I read the blurb because there was so much about this story of four pioneering women who attend Oxford University and are the first cohort to gain an actual degree. The four women arrive at Oxford in a time of great upheaval. The First World War has ended and women have just been awarded the vote. Beatrice comes from a progressive family, with a suffragette mother who attended Oxford herself despite being unable to graduate like the men. Beatrice is very political, obviously a feminist and is used to being noticed, as she’s usually the tallest woman in a room. Marianne is a scholarship student, but she seems to have secrets. She returns home every other weekend and struggles financially but she is determined to get her education. Ottoline (Otto) comes from a wealthy family, but is haunted by her war experiences after volunteering for a nursing role. She found it so distressing that she had to be redeployed as a driver, giving patients transportation rather than working on the front line. She’s had symptoms of PTSD ever since, but also feelings of shame that she couldn’t do her duty. Dora also struggles with the consequences of war. She received a letter from her fiancé Charles’s regiment to inform her he’d been killed, then only two weeks later her brother George also lost his life. She still sees Charles wherever she goes and being so close to his university only serves to keep him at the forefront of her mind. These four girls are assigned to a corridor where the rooms start with the number eight, giving them their affectionate nickname. This seemingly random allocation starts strong friendships as the girls help each other negotiate their university work, their memories of the war and being taken seriously by their male counterparts. Oxford University is the oldest English- speaking university in the world, having been founded in the 11th Century. The first colleges for men were fully established 200 years later and the Bodleian Library opened in 1602. Women were only starting to be interested in an Oxford education in the late 1800s and four women’s colleges were established, however even after years of negotiation to do the same courses as men, women had to be chaperoned to lectures. I was amazed to read that despite doing exactly the same exams, women could not be awarded degrees and dons would still refuse to teach them. I couldn’t imagine doing all that work, then having nothing tangible to show for it. It must have been soul-destroying. The author’s story begins after women got the vote and it took until 1920 for women to become fully enrolled at the university as men had been, a ritual called matriculation. The author lays out this facts at the beginning of the novel, which is brilliant for setting the scene generally but also allows us into what is an exclusive world with it’s won language and culture. She separates her book into the named terms - such as Michaelmas or Hilary - and lays out the dress code and rules, different for men and women. She also lets us into what the exams are called and has a glossary at the back in case you get lost. This is such a world away from my life, even though people from my school went to Oxford, it was definitely not for the likes of me. I’d have definitely been a scholarship student and way out of my depth. Finally she splits her first chapter between the four girls so we get a really good sense of who they are and where they’re from. This is a real character led novel from Joanna Miller and she creates a similar feel to those novels I loved as a girl such as the Little Women series or What Katy Did At School. With both of those novels I felt like these characters would be great fun to be friends with and I loved the scrapes they got into and the character building lessons learned. This has all that, but with great emotional heft and real, gritty issues from that time period. I loved how the characters developed over time and how each of the friends supported but also changed each other with their different backgrounds and perspectives on the world. I felt Marianne’s predicament strongly, in that she’s landed with three friends who are reasonably comfortable financially. I felt it when they all swapped presents for Christmas, but Marianne couldn’t afford to buy them anything, so instead created a framed favourite poem for each of them. Her offerings are always from the heart and she’s definitely the most thoughtful and most serious of the girls. She also has the hurdle of illness to climb over, as well as whatever takes her home on weekends. The others notice that she’s never managed her reading so what is she doing? She has the constant fear of not passing the year and losing her scholarship and is preparing herself for the eventuality of only spending one year there. Ottoline is probably her opposite, in fact if it wasn’t for her love of maths she might be tearing about London with her sister and the rest of the Bright Young Things. There’s the rather imperious side to Otto, such as the way she’s always scuttling into tearooms and the nickname ‘Baroness’ that she earned in the war. However, there’s a softer side too and that terrible sense of failure she still feels, but she definitely comes through for Marianne when she contracts flu. Otto proves capable of dealing with bodily fluids, cooling Marianne in the bath and even washing her down with a damp cloth. She is even the first to uncover Marianne’s secret and guards it ferociously. Beatrice is living with the weight of her mother’s success, both as a student of Oxford and a suffragette. She is a woman of ‘considerable reknown’ and this has given Beatrice an interesting childhood. She now has several hobbies - writing letters to politicians and watching debates in the commons, propagating orchids and being able to read Ancient Greek. She seems the perfect fit for Oxford but has never really lived in close proximity to other young women or lived anywhere but the family home in Bloomsbury. Two key events in the book seem to shape her future. She meets a young woman called Ursula who is outspoken, political and wears men’s clothing, which is much more comfortable than women’s. Beatrice is bowled over by her new acquaintance and is determined to wear men’s shirts and ties from then on. There is also the ceremony for her mother who will finally be awarded an Oxford degree. There is a push and pull constantly between who Beatrice is and where she has come from; does she accept and enjoy the legacy of her mother, or does she move away from it? Through her we learn about some of the worst aspects of the suffragette’s fight, particularly the way some women were treated as protestors and prisoners. Dora is a delightful girl from the country, who comes to university rather old-fashioned in her longer skirts and waist length hair, when hemlines are rising and hair is being shingled shorter than ever. Yet she’s weighed down with the early throes of bereavement and has come to Oxford in the hope of feeling closer to the memory of her fiancé who should have come to Queen’s College. She wants more than to pour tea, play whist and prop up her mother who’s grief is inconsolable. Dora will perhaps change the most and with a terrible shock to come, Dora may have to make a decision between the new life she has created or her old one. I loved every moment I spent with these young women. They are all equally interesting and important so I couldn’t pick one I gelled with most. I loved Beatrice’s awakening, her straight forward manner and her bravery. Otto made me laugh and became so much more nuanced than the spoiled rich girl she could have been. Dora’s gentle strength is admirable, especially when it is tested. Marianne is the dark horse of the group, but she’s surprising and has a strong sense of what is right for her. This is a favourite time period for me so I loved the clothing, the outings, the rising tide of women wanting more from life than a ring and motherhood. These women are the birth of who we are now and I think the author was really successful in portraying issues that are still relevant. As we see women’s rights being eroded and the misogyny on social media, this is also about how men treat women. Whether it’s the control wielded by a father figure or professor, the deception and double-standards men use to manipulate women, the sexual predator or abuser, taking a chance moment or a position of power to commit violence. I believe that just the chance to pursue their education with the freedom men take for granted, is a huge step for the women in terms of status but also self-confidence. However, it is the friendship of these four women, first and foremost, that helps them grow. Their unflinching support and understanding of each other is beautifully drawn and brings to mind something I’ve always said to women on my ‘authentic self’ workshops; men may come and go, but it’s the women in your life who will hold you up’.