Secrets of a Charmed Life

Julia Downtree, later Julia Waverly and Julia Waverly Massey, is Emmy’s younger half-sister and one of the three protagonists whose perspectives the novel explores. She is the daughter of Annie Downtree and the actor Neville Waverly, who went by Neville Black to Annie and others. Julia starts out as a seven-year-old girl who is willing to keep her sister with her at all costs, but after the Blitz, she becomes a deeply traumatized and guilt-ridden young woman. Like her sister, Julia goes through a lengthy journey of confronting her trauma to find happiness again.

Julia begins the story as a beautiful and charming girl whose personality delights people but whose candor and shamelessness about her family background sometimes alienate her, as with the Trimbles. As a result of her mother’s busy schedule, Julia is significantly closer to her sister, Emmy, though she also enjoys the company of Thea and her cats. Julia wants nothing more than to be with her sister, and while she loves Emmy’s sketches, she dreads Emmy leaving her once she starts training with Mr. Dabney. This drives her to convince Emmy to take her to London with her. Before they leave, she switches out the brides box for her fairy-tale book. This has lasting consequences on her psyche, as the guilt over this choice follows her for many years.

After Emmy leaves Julia in the flat, Thea finds her and takes her to her grandparents. Her grandparents raise her in Connecticut during the war, and in Woodstock, England, after it. The bombings and being separated from Emmy traumatize her and cause her to stop talking until five years after the war. With the help of her therapists, she manages to enjoy London again; she even moves there and becomes an art director’s assistant at a cartography company when she is 20. There, she meets Simon Massey, whom she eventually marries and has a family with.

Julia carries a heavy amount of guilt, believing that she has destroyed her sister’s dreams and happiness. As a result, she becomes depressed and delays her engagement and wedding to Simon for years, believing she does not deserve happiness. When Gwen finds the brides box for her, Julia uses one of the dress sketches for her wedding dress, which allows her to feel connected to her sister and forgive herself. Later, she reunites with her sister and enjoys life with her and their families until she dies from breast cancer 20 years after their reunion.

Kendra Van Zant is an Oxford student from California and one of the three protagonists whose perspectives are explored in the novel. She is a history major who interviews Isabel/Emmy for her essay, hoping it will be one of the five chosen to be included in a newspaper on VE Day. She enjoys her time in England and laments that she is graduating this year, which means she will have to return to the United States, though she is content to continue her education at the University of Southern California.

Isabel immediately connects with Kendra, as they are both the older of two sisters. Kendra quickly becomes invested in Emmy’s story and expresses happiness when she learns from Isabel that she returned to Thistle House with Gwen and Mac and stayed. She also expresses relief and delight that Emmy reunited with Julia, and that their families got to live together. Kendra tells Isabel/Emmy that while she might see herself as a coward, Kendra sees her as a brave woman who has handled her hardships well and has created a happy life for herself and her family after the war.

Charlotte Havelock is Emmy and Julia’s foster mother during the evacuation of London’s children to the countryside. Later, she serves as a mother figure for Emmy/Isabel. She owns Thistle House in Stow-on-the-Wold, where she takes care of her mentally disabled younger sister Rose following their mother’s death. Her husband, Oliver “Ollie” Havelock, died years ago and was an exceptional handyman ahead of his time.

Charlotte is kind and non-judgmental, warmly welcoming Emmy and Julia despite them being illegitimate half-sisters with different fathers, which is frowned upon in society at this time. She also actively supports their dreams and passions: She buys materials for Emmy’s sketching and provides her with a sewing machine as well as her own wedding dress to practice her dressmaking. She also gifts Julia a beautiful tea set and two dolls named Guinevere and Henrietta, all of which she had since she was a child.

Charlotte encourages the two girls to read and pursue their educations, telling Emmy she will continue to go to school after she returns to Thistle House. She also becomes a confidant and mother figure for Emmy and encourages her to pursue her happiness and marry the man she loves after she discovers her pregnancy. In her letter before her death from heart failure, she reveals that she let Rose swim in a lake alone against their parents’ warnings. She blamed herself for Rose’s injuries for years, but she realizes that she was not completely at fault. She uses this to convince Emmy to forgive herself. After she dies, she gives Thistle House to Emmy.

Anne Louise “Annie” Downtree is Emmy and Julia’s mother, Henry Thorne’s former maid and lover, Neville Waverly’s ex-lover, and Mrs. Billingsley’s kitchen maid. She is a single mother and works hard as a kitchen maid to support herself and her daughters. She loves her daughters, but she depends on Emmy to help care for Julia and feels that Emmy’s dream is unrealistic, arguing that she is too young to pursue such a career with the war and Julia needing care. After Julia disappears, she tells Emmy that she believes Emmy is ashamed of her, as Emmy believes Annie is doing sex work. Annie tells her that Julia’s disappearance was not her fault, and she leaves to get help. She dies at the Sharington Crescent Hotel along with Henry Thorne.

Annie had sought love from both Henry and Neville and, even in her anger and frustration, still appeared to love both of them. She is visibly upset after learning about Neville’s death, as depicting by her drinking, though much of it is also because of how much he lied to her. She also remained in contact with Henry, who paid for her flat and supported her and Emmy over the years. After Julia disappears, she goes to Henry to see if he will help find her, but a bomb hits the hotel they are in and the basement collapses, killing them both as they hold each other.