The Other Daughter: A Novel, by Lauren Willig

There is a mistaken belief that the Jazz Age of the 1920s was a romantic time of flappers and long necklaces. Instead, there was little romance in this decade where the remnants of the generation that had not been killed in the slaughter of World War I, threw off Edwardian constraints, raised hemlines, bobbed their hair, partied all night, and obsessed over cocktails. In "The Other Daughter," Lauren Willig skillfully captures the crazy hysteria of the English upper classes during this time. She makes clear that it was a backlash against the overwhelming grief and despair that had drowned veterans, and families of the war dead during and after the war.

Rachel Woodley, an English governess to the children of a wealthy, cold French family, finds herself catapulted into this mess when her beloved mother dies of influenza. Raised in a quiet English village as the daughter of a proper, widow who gave piano lessons, Rachel returns to England only to learn that her father is not dead and he has become Lord Standish with another family, including another daughter. Crushed that her beloved father had abandoned her, and her life had been a lie, Rachel wants revenge. Accordingly, she sets out to infiltrate what she believes is the happy, modern set. As she befriends her half-sister, and others, the fragile veneer peels away, and the ugly truth of the so called "Roaring Twenties" is laid bare.

* Print Length: 305 pages
* Publisher: St. Martin's Press (July 21, 2015)
* Publication Date: July 21, 2015
* Sold by: Macmillan

Radio Girls, by Sarah-Jane Stratford

There are some novels that you never want to end. "Radio Girls," a great novel of historical fiction, is one of them. Author Sarah-Jane Stratford takes us to mid-1920s' London, a time when the BBC was inventing itself, and most of parliament considered radio an experiment that would not last. The novel's protagonist, Maisie Musgrave, is a young Canadian women with a cold, distant actress mother and a British father she has never met. She is hired by Sir John Reith, the BBC Director General, as a secretary, but is soon working for Hilda Matheson, the director of the new BBC "Talks." (Reith is known as one of the few employers of this time to hire women for substantive positions--as long as they remained unmarried.)

Surrounded by Cambridge and Oxford graduates, Maisie feels the lack of her formal education. She has never gone to any school, and is mostly self-taught by reading everything she could find in the libraries in the many cities she traveled to, dragged along by her mother. She also doesn't know if her parents ever married, a serious mark against her in the 1920s, if true. Notwithstanding, Matheson recognizes that Maisie's solid, investigative mind is that of a potential producer and takes her under her wing. Vivacious, exciting Matheson, a member of the Bloomsbury Group (and romantic partner of Vita Sackville-West), is used by Stratford to convey the thrill of creating a media that, for the first time, connected people as live radio broadcasts entered their sitting rooms. Stratford writes:

"Hilda had written in her notes on broadcasting, that it was 'a capturing of sounds and voices all over the world to which hitherto we have been deaf. It is a means of enlarging the frontiers of human interest and consciousness, of widening personal experience, of shrinking the earth’s surface.' Such a lovely way to describe this curious creature they were continually inventing. The stranger inviting itself into a silent home, asking to become a friend."

(How intriguing and moving that Matheson's words could also be used to describe that 21st century "creature," the internet.)

It was an exciting time for any young person with a lively, curious mind. The world was changing quickly: in London automobiles were everywhere, hemlines were rising, women were entering the business world and universal suffrage was about to become law. Maisie absorbed all of this. In addition, as part of her duties, Maisie was required to contact famous authors and artists to see if they would agree to be part of the daily "Talks." Imagine her excitement, or the excitement of any young person of the time, when she is given the responsibility of telephoning Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, H.G. Wells, and P.G. Wodehouse, to name just a few.

"Radio Girls" is one of best novels I have read this year; it definitely is a book that lovers of historical fiction will want to read.

Print Length: 381 pages
Publisher: Berkley (June 14, 2016)
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC

The Miss Silver Mysteries: Grey Mask, The Case Is Closed, and Lonesome Road, by Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961)

In this newly re-published collection of three of her earliest novels, Patricia Wentworth transports us to the very stylish British Art Deco world of the 1920s and 1930s, where the women are elegant and worried, and the men are monsters, or exceedingly dreary, or handsome heroes. One of the leading writers of the Golden Age of detective fiction, Wentworth draws a clear line between evil and good, and she makes sure that we know that her "private enquiry agent," retired governess Miss Maud Silver, is no innocent, sweet old lady. Miss Silver has looked evil in the eye, and prevailed, and she has been changed by it.

In her first novel, "The Grey Mask," published in 1928, Charles Moray returns from a self-imposed four-year exile upon learning of his father's death. His first night back, he stumbles upon a strange meeting of conspirators taking place in his vacant family home. He doesn't summon the police because his former fiancee, Margaret Langton, is at the meeting, the same woman whose rejection of him caused his long absence. Alarmed at the dangerous, rough company she appeared to be involved with, Moray seeks out the elderly Maude Silver, a female sleuth famous for her terrifying ability to gather information and ferret out falsehoods.

In "The Case is Closed," first published in 1937, Wentworth takes on an unjust murder conviction. Gregory Grey has been convicted of murdering his uncle and sent to prison for 50 years. His wife Marion has lost the baby she was carrying and is living a frozen, colorless, soulless life, working as a "mannequin" modeling chic dresses, while she grieves for her lost marriage, husband and baby. Her younger cousin Helen is determined to seek justice for Gregory and Marion. Helen's ex-fiancee, Captain Henry Cunningham, is worried about Helen's activities and, on the recommendation of his distant cousin, Charles Moray (of "The Grey Mask" mystery), he hires Maude Silver to investigate. As Helen and Miss Silver close in on the truth, they must travel in a London, an Edinburgh and on rural country lanes that no longer exist in reality but will forever exist in Wentworth's mysteries.

In the third mystery, "Lonesome Road," first published in 1939, unmarried heiress Rachel Treherne seeks out Miss Silver because someone is trying to kill her. The likely suspects are her family members who spend much time at her lonely mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea. A wealthy woman who inherited much from her father, Treherne is also tasked with finding the heirs of his former business partner, and rectifying an old wrong by giving them a portion of her wealth. This beautifully written mystery climaxes in a breath-taking, terror-filled scene where Miss Silver unmasks the would-be murderer.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 701 pages
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller (June 28, 2016)
Publication Date: June 28, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

(Undated photo of Patricia Wentworth)

The Woman on the Orient Express, by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Lindsay Jayne Ashford, takes us back to 1928, when thirty-eight year old Agatha Christie traveled under a pseudonym to Mesopotamia aboard the Orient Express. For the first time in her life, Christie "was traveling abroad on her own. Everything she would do in the next two months would be entirely of her own choosing. She would find out if she could do it. If she could stand being alone," and if she could finally banish the ghost of her ex-husband who had betrayed her in every possible way.

The Orient Express, itself, connotes a time where passengers dressed for dinner, slept in luxurious compartments, and travelled undisturbed from Calais to Damascus. Ashford captures the excitement and elegance of travel aboard this train starting with her depiction of the moment Christie decides to take this trip. It was at a dinner party, one of the few that Christie attended as a newly single woman. After learning that one of the guests, a military man, had been stationed in Iraq not far from a famous archeological dig, Christie exclaimed, "I've always been fascinated by archaeology, I do envy you, living there. I’d love to visit Baghdad.” His response, "Oh, you must go! You can get there by the Orient Express," had a "magical effect" on Christie and she told the guest that the Orient Express represented a pinnacle of elegance to her ever since she "had seen this train as a child, catching sight of the distinctive blue-and-gold livery when her mother took her to live in France before the war. She had watched men and women walking along the platform with rapturous faces, greeted by immaculate stewards standing to attention outside every carriage. She saw boxes of oysters glistening on ice, whole sides of bacon slung on hooks, and cartloads of every kind of fruit being loaded on board."

Aboard the Orient Express, Christie learns that she is not the only one hiding secrets behind the luxury of the Wagons-Lits train cars. A loner most of her life, she finds herself befriending two women whose friendship will change her life. It is through the eyes of these three friends that Ashford shows us parts of Middle East as it was in 1928, a time when Aleppo and Baghdad were busy, whole and cosmopolitan, and the Yezidis live peacefully on their mountain- Jebel Sinjar.

As Christie cleverly demonstrated in her mystery novels, dark secrets can be harmful. Ashford brings such dark secrets to light when Christie is called upon to solve real life mysteries involving her friends. Never having solved a real life mystery before, Christie screws her courage to the sticking place and thinks, "what would her little Belgian detective do in a situation like this? The answer came back in a flash. You must use the little gray cells."

Agatha Christie as a young woman

Through this fictionalized biography, Ashford paints a magnificent portrait of Christie as a woman of great depths, with a plethora of emotions and moods. This is a novel that will engage both your heart and your little gray cells.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

Paperback: 330 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (September 20, 2016)
Language: English

The Yearbook, by Carol Masciola

The Yearbook" is a wonderful visit to 1923. Lola Lundy is a 16 year old orphan living in a state-run group home when she comes across a yearbook from 1923. From that point on, The Yearbook is a roller coaster ride through the highs and lows of the early 1920s and 2015. Is Lola dreaming or did she really time travel to 1923? I will not spoil the book for others, but I will say it is a marvellous book written by a storyteller who knows how to tell a very good story. Carol Masciola also has an ear for voices, and her characters reflect that talent. Lola, Miss Bryant, Whoopsie and Miss Hershey will be hard to forget.

Print Length: 224 pages
Publisher: Merit Press (October 2, 2015)
Publication Date: October 2, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

The Forgotten Flapper: A Novel of Olive Thomas (Forgotten Actresses series Book 1), by Laini Giles

In "The Forgotten Flapper," Laini Giles manages to infuse a tragic, somewhat fictionalized, biography with the magic of the Ziegfield Follies, the excitement of early Hollywood, and the whimsey of the "Topper" movies. Olive Thomas, the subject of the book, was the first "Baby Vamp," and the term "Flapper" came from her 1920 film, "The Flapper." After dying in 1920 from an accidental poisoning, Olive, apparently, has haunted the New Amsterdam Theater on Times Square. (According to the current director of the theater, Disney contractors encountered Olive often while refurbishing the theater in the 1990s.) The story of Olive's journey from a poor, Pennsylvania family to star of the Ziegfield Follies and then to silent movie star, is both painful and endearing. Olive was a talented actress who, at the age of 21, was already trying to get experience in directing and writing movies. Giles has managed to present Olive's life without the usual, annoying cliches found in a rags to poor, little rich girl story. She also has managed to strip away the fictional gloss of the Pickford family, including Jack Pickford, Olive's husband, and Mary Pickford, Olive's sister-in-law. It's hard to imagine a crueler, colder set of in-laws than Mary and her mother Charlotte as depicted in the "The Forgotten Flapper."

Giles has given us a glimpse of the true early Hollywood, and she leaves us wondering what wonderful things Olive Thomas could have accomplished if she had not died so young...

Print Length: 422 pages
Publisher: Sepia Stories Publishing; 1 edition (August 1, 2015)
Publication Date: August 1, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

The Garden on Sunset: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah Novels Book 1), By Martin Turnbull

Did you ever want to time travel back to Hollywood in the 1930s? Do you inhale the films of Hollywood's Golden Age? Do you ever wonder what Hollywood was truly like at that time? If you can answer "yes" to at least one of these questions, then you must read Martin Turnbull's "The Garden On Sunset: A Novel of Golden-Era Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah Novels, Book One)."

In "The Garden on Sunset," Martin Turnbull introduces us to Kathryn, Gwendolyn, and Marcus, three 20-something odd socks who fall in with each other through happenstance: all three find themselves living at the Garden of Allah Hotel in Los Angeles.

Kathryn wants to be a journalist, despite the frantic push into acting by her stage mother. Gwendolyn, from Florida when Florida was the old South, wants to be an actress, but finds herself fighting off mashers as the Cigarette Girl at the Coconut Grove. Marcus, who was kicked out of his Pennsylvania home and family after his father caught him making out with his boyfriend, wants to write screen plays. He fled to the Garden of Allah at 8152 Sunset Boulevard because this is the address Madam Alla Nazimova had given him when she visited him years before. Her kindness to a small boy with diphtheria, and her message that he should visit her at her home, has carried him through his father's betrayal and it is the only place he knew he would be welcome.

Unfortunately for Marcus, Madam Nazimova has sold her mansion, and it has become the Garden of Allah Hotel. The three young people meet at a bash celebrating the Hotel's Opening Night (which happens to coincide with Marcus's visit). For the next three years, we follow them as they deal with bootlegged liquor and a time when unwed pregnancies were scandalous, and loving someone of the same sex could end a career and send you to prison.

While surviving their own battles with the restrictions of the times, the three friends are befriended by Talulah Bankhead, Greta Garbo, George Cukor, and Ramon Navarro, to name just a few. Madam Nazimova does finally appear, and we learn why she befriended Marcus when he was a young boy. The friends also find themselves tangled up with Louella Parsons, William Randolph Hearst, and Marion Davies.

Turnbull brings the "Golden Age of Hollywood" to life with the same type of humor, insight and love used by Armistad Maupin in "Tales of the City," his homage to 1970s San Francisco, centered around a group of iconoclastic, loving, odd-sock friends.

"The Garden on Sunset" is an exceptional book. If you love time traveling while sitting in your comfortable, reading place, you will think so too.

Print Length: 313 pages
Publication Date: January 16, 2014
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

ELGIN PARK: Visual Memories of Midcentury America at 1/24th scale, by Michael Paul Smith and Gail K. Ellison

Michael Paul Smith and Gail K. Ellison recreate, in 1/24 scale (1/2 inch = 12 inches), midwest houses, streets and life from the 1920s onward, including Smith's own childhood home. Smith also provides instructions on how to build, how to create the right mood, and how to best photograph the scene. I am a miniatures collector and creator, and I have explored this world for most of my adult life. Elgin Park astounded me, it blew me away. This is a book to spend time with, to absorb one photo and one page at a time, and to keep around for years to come. I absolutely loved it!

(A page from Elgin Park demonstrates how amazing this book is.)

(I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Perfect Paperback: 324 pages
Publisher: Animal Media Group LLC; 1st edition (June 24, 2015)
Language: English