Author: Fiona Davis
Started: November 12, 2022
Finished: November 13, 2022
Rose Lewin lives in the former Barbizon Hotel with her boyfriend. When he pulls the rug out from under her by going back to his family to help raise his sick child, Rose is left with nowhere to live and half the pay she used to receive. After running into a mysterious woman in the elevator, Rose speaks to one of the other women on the fourth floor, all former Barbizon Hotel residents, she realizes there is a story waiting to be told. As she delves into the secret of the woman who lives below her, she realizes that there may be more than meets the eye.
Darby McLaughlin moves into the Barbizon Hotel, a hotel strictly for women, with a placement in the Katherine Gibbs School to learn to become a secretary. One night she goes out with the Ford models on her floor and is attacked. After learning she had been set up, the hotel maid, Esme, comes to her defense and helps her get cleaned up. An unlikely friendship grows and Darby begins to see that maybe the goals her mother set for her are not all she is meant to do. When tragedy strikes everyone's lives are altered and their futures will never be the same.
In Fiona Davis' debut novel, she sets the 1952 scene in such a manner that you cannot help but fall into it. The main characters are people you would want to know in real life and their pasts make them someone the reader feels for. It was amazing to look at this book and some of Davis' newer novels and see the manner in which her storytelling has changed and grown. The last few chapters of this quick read were amazing and completely not what I thought was going to happen. I'm so glad I took the day to read this one!