Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Goodreads: When young Gilded Age society matron Daisy Harriman is refused a room at the Waldorf because they don’t cater to unaccompanied females, she takes matters into her own hands. She establishes the Colony Club, the first women’s club in Manhattan, where visiting women can stay overnight and dine with their friends; where they can discuss new ideas, take on social issues, and make their voices heard. She hires the most sought-after architect in New York, Stanford White, to design the clubhouse.
As “the best dressed actress on the Rialto” Elsie de Wolfe has an eye for décor, but her career is stagnating. So when White asks her to design the clubhouse interiors, she jumps at the chance and the opportunity to add a woman’s touch. He promises to send her an assistant, a young woman he’s hired as a draftsman.
Raised in the Lower East Side tenements, Nora Bromely is determined to become an architect in spite of hostility and sabotage from her male colleagues. She is disappointed and angry when White “foists” her off on this new women’s club project.
But when White is murdered and the ensuing Trial of the Century discloses the architect’s scandalous personal life, fearful backers begin to withdraw their support. It’s questionable whether the club will survive long enough to open.
Daisy, Elsie, and Nora have nothing in common but their determination to carry on. But to do so, they must overcome not only society’s mores but their own prejudices about women, wealth, and each other. Together they strive to transform Daisy’s dream of the Colony Club into a reality, a place that will nurture social justice and ensure the work of the women who earned the nickname “Mink Brigade” far into the future.
Kritters Thoughts: Told in two different time periods, one in Washington, DC in 1963 as women recounting the long road that they took to establish the first social club for women. The second timeline where most pages took place started in 1902 as a group of women came together to discover the need and the path to create a social club where they could come congregate and have a space that was designed just for them!
I loved this book. The characters were fantastic and I was drawn in by their will to get this project completed and make a space for women when the only space they were to be in was the home. I love reading a book about women defying the expectations of their moment in time and pushing the boundaries as to what is "allowed" of a woman. There were two women who caught my eye and I loved reading about them - Daisy Harriman, a socialite who when trying to travel to New York City without her husband is denied a hotel room and this is the beginnings of the women's social club. Nora Bromley, a young woman who had a drive outside of herself to become something at a time when women had very low expectations to "become something". She wanted to become an architect and create buildings and spaces that would help people live and heal from mainly tuberculosis.
As it is spoiled in the synopsis of the book, a murder almost halted this project completely and while I didn't read the synopsis first, it made the book shocking for me and I enjoyed reading how scandal did and always will affect things.
I love a book that grasps my attention from the beginning, but keeps me reading wanting to know where all the characters will end up. AND I love a historical fiction book that encourages me to do outside research and find out where the truth and fiction intersect. My first historical fiction read by Shelley Noble and by no means will be my last.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
