Smart, fierce, lovely, and intricate.
A crusading Gilded Age journalist makes a soul connection with a jeweler, who unwittingly helps her leverage the mystique of the Hope Diamond as she fights for justice.
New York heiress Vera Garland has a secret: She’s also the popular female journalist Vee Swann, a secret identity she maintains through a no-nonsense disguise and backstory that depends on her living in a significantly less upscale part of town than her family. She feels it’s necessary to stay in touch with the stories of the day, especially those that deal with tenements, immigrants, and the struggles of the less privileged, including working women. Her mother disapproves of her work, so Vera depends on the love and approval of her father, Granville Garland, owner of a Fifth Avenue emporium. Going undercover in a tenement, Vee befriends a young neighbor, but when the girl falls ill and Vee offers to pay for a doctor, the child’s drunk, enraged father throws her down a stairway. Severely injured and emotionally wounded by the child’s death, Vera moves into the beautiful Tiffany-designed penthouse apartment above her father's store. She is just beginning to feel herself again when her father dies from a heart attack. Vera inherits the apartment and, in clearing out his things, discovers a letter that makes her realize her father had deep secrets, including a love affair with a man that predated his marriage. She suspects he died of a broken heart since his lover committed suicide to protect them both from a blackmailer. Meanwhile, the Hope Diamond has come to New York, residing in Cartier’s Fifth Avenue shop. Vera suspects Cartier is playing up the jewel's dramatic history to try to increase its value. She effects an accidental meeting with Jacob Asher, an enigmatic jeweler whose renowned family was decimated in the Russian pogroms and who now works with Cartier. When the two become close, she blurs the lines between her professional and personal lives, gaining information from their relationship that reflects badly on Cartier in order to expose her father's extortionist. When justice is served, however, Vera must decide what she’s willing to fight for in her personal life. Rose’s newest title is complex and compelling, with many threads of history, plot, and character that weave together into a bold, satisfying tapestry. Along the way, she touches on issues society still faces: power, privilege, anti-Semitism, women’s sexual, social, and professional rights, and the never-ending struggle for tolerance and equality.
Smart, fierce, lovely, and intricate.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7363-9
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A complicated and intimate story of JFK’s secret life, best suited for American history buffs.
A fictionalized diary of Mary Pinchot Meyer, the woman rumored to have stolen the heart of John F. Kennedy during his presidency.
Born into a wealthy Pennsylvania family, Mary Pinchot first met JFK when she was a teenager in boarding school. Years later, after marrying CIA agent Cord Meyer, Mary settled in Georgetown, where she and her husband regularly attended parties alongside several political heavyweights. It was in Georgetown that Mary reconnected with then-senator Kennedy. Following her divorce from Cord a few years later, Mary is thought to have developed an intimate emotional and physical relationship with JFK, and the book imagines this relationship as it may have evolved after Kennedy became president of the United States. Wolfe (Postcards From Atlantic City, 2015, etc.) uses Mary’s fictional journal to portray this elusive woman as a politically informed, bohemian artist whose forward-thinking attitudes may have played a role in Kennedy's political decisions, especially during the Cuban missile crisis. The author’s Mary Pinchot Meyer is convinced that Kennedy loves her more deeply than he has any other woman, including his wife. The closer Mary becomes with the president, however, the more she fears for her own safety. The author deftly simulates a complicated woman’s diary, creating a document that feels entirely authentic—which includes assuming a certain level of knowledge on the reader’s part about the primary players in several federal agencies of the early 1960s. True to its nature as a diary, the prose is often choppy and desultory, which results in a narrative that is sometimes difficult to follow. Even so, the author includes interesting political and historical details in the entries, shedding light on a woman with a front seat to American history.
A complicated and intimate story of JFK’s secret life, best suited for American history buffs.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-291066-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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