Josephine Baker’s Last Dance, by Sherry Jones. Gallery Books, 2018Josephine Baker, born in 1906 to a poor family in St. Louis, was used pretty much as a slave from the time she could walk. Her mother put her out to white families as a live in servant, with Josephine’s pay going to her. Josephine never saw anything of it. Worse, she was sexually ( Read more... )

American Duchess: A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt, by Karen Harper. William Morrow, 2019
Consuelo Vanderbilt was brought up strict by her socialite mother, Alva. Taught all the things a society lady was supposed to know, and confined to a corset with a steel rod in the back to make sure her posture was perfect, she was expected to marry well and ( Read more... )

The Age of Light, by Whitney Scharer. Little, Brown and Company, 2018
In 1929, American Lee Miller moved to Paris to become a photographer. She was not stranger to cameras; she had a career as a model of Vogue, and her father used her as a model from toddlerhood on. But she doesn’t want to be a model anymore; she wants to be a creator of art, ( Read more... )

The General’s Cook, by Ramin Ganeshram. Arcade Publishing, 2018

Hercules Harkless was a real person; he was the chef for George Washington for many years. As a slave, he had privileges that most slaves didn’t;: he received a decent wage; as long as his work was done he could leave the premises and go to the tavern or the theater; and he wore ( Read more... )

Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen, by Alison Weir. Ballantine Books, 2018
Jane Seymour is a Tudor queen about which less has been written; she was a quiet girl, who spent her early years wanting to become a nun. Her home life was rather horrific: her brother’s wife became her father’s mistress. Ultimately she is sent to court to be Lady in Waiting ( Read more... )

Never Anyone But You, by Rupert Thomson. Other Press, 2018
In the years right before World War One, two teenaged girls meet. Suzanne Malherbe and Lucie Schwob fall in love, which of course they must hide. Then in an odd twist of fate, one’s mother marries the other’s father, making them step-sisters. Now they are free to live together, to put ( Read more... )

Ecstasy, by Mary Sharratt. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018
I was torn about requesting this book. On the one hand, I love Mary Sharratt. Her writing really resonates with me. On the other, it’s about Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel. A couple of years ago I read a biography of her, and it did *not* portray her in a good light. It was in ( Read more... )

Margaret the First, by Danielle Dutton. Catapult, 2016 This is a rather odd little book. Margaret the First is Margaret Cavendish, a duchess that lived during the British Civil War and Restoration. A rather fey child, she became a lady in waiting to the Queen, and stayed such during the Queen’s court in exile. At court she met and married William ( Read more... )

1929: A Novel of the Jazz Age, by Frederick Turner. Counterpoint, 2003 Jazz and the 1920s are subjects I love, so I was happy to come across this book. It had lots of wonderful reviews, too, so I jumped right into it. But it took quite a while for me to feel the story; it’s a fictionalized biography of jazz coronetist Bix Beiderbecke but in the ( Read more... )

Platinum Doll: A Novel about Jean Harlow, by Anne Girard. Mira, 2016 Harlean Carpenter-Jean Harlow’s real name- was the first blond bombshell of Hollywood. She arrived there 1928, seventeen years old, and newlywed. Despite having a mother who tried a few years earlier to break into film, Harlean had no intention of working- her young husband was a ( Read more... )