Julie's Review: Park Avenue Summer

Author: Renee Rosen
Series: None
Publication Date: April 20, 2019
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 368
Obtained: Great Thoughts, Great Readers Book Salon
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Rating: 5/5
Bottom Line: An interesting look at a woman who was ahead of her time
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Summary: New York City is filled with opportunities for single girls like Alice Weiss, who leaves her small midwestern town to chase her big-city dreams and unexpectedly lands the job of a lifetime working for the first female editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown. Nothing could have prepared Alice for the world she enters as editors and writers resign on the spot, refusing to work for the woman who wrote the scandalous bestseller Sex and the Single Girl, and confidential memos, article ideas, and cover designs keep finding their way into the wrong hands. When someone tries to pull Alice into a scheme to sabotage her boss, she is more determined than ever to help Helen succeed. While pressure mounts at the magazine and Alice struggles to make her way in New York, she quickly learns that in Helen Gurley Brown's world, a woman can demand to have it all. ~amazon.com 

Review: Coming into this book I didn’t know much about Helen Gurley Brown’s start at Cosmopolitan. I can tell you that in my house growing up it was a bit too racy and I wasn’t allowed to throw it in grocery cart. 😉 As an adult it wasn't really on my radar either. Having said that I do love reading about women who break the mold and become successful in-spite of people trying to hold them down. That's exactly what Ms. Brown does and did well for decades. 

Alice was the perfect narrator for this novel. She's come to New York because that's where she feels she can pursue her photography and well her dad got remarried. She gets a job as Helen Gurley Brown's secretary and very quickly becomes protective of her and what she's trying to accomplish. She quickly learns the joys of corporate working when she's asked to spy on Helen for Hearst. 

There is much correlation between the growing pains that Cosmopolitan is going through and Alice's own growing up. She learns much about herself, what she wants and how she wants to get it in the time she spends with Helen.

Lovers of A Devil Wears Prada will thoroughly enjoy this novel.

Julie's Review: Windy City Blues

Author: Renee Rosen
Series: None
Publication Date: February 28, 2017
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 480
Obtained: publisher via NetGalley
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: A fantastic look at the Chicago Blues scene through the eyes of fictional characters
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Summary: In 1960s Chicago, a young woman stands in the middle of a musical and social revolution. A new historical novel from the bestselling author of White Collar Girl and What the Lady Wants. Leeba Groski doesn’t exactly fit in, but her love of music is not lost on her childhood friend and neighbor, Leonard Chess, who offers her a job at his new record company in Chicago. What starts as answering phones and filing becomes more than Leeba ever dreamed of, as she comes into her own as a songwriter and crosses paths with legendary performers like Chuck Berry and Etta James. But it’s Red Dupree, a black blues guitarist from Louisiana, who captures her heart and changes her life. Their relationship is unwelcome in segregated Chicago and they are shunned by Leeba’s Orthodox Jewish family. Yet in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, Leeba and Red discover that, in times of struggle, music can bring people together. ~amazon.com

Review: If you are looking for a novel that blends history and fictional characters so well that you consult Google, then Windy City Blues is for you! Having grown up in the suburbs of Chicago and spending my college years there, I am always intrigued by all the history it has to offer. I'm also quite astounded by the things I don't know.

What I loved about this novel is the rich history of the Chicago Blues scene but also how Ms. Rosen weaved in the Civil Rights movement. I love how Leeba leaped into that movement with Red, because it was something that both of them were affected by personally not just him because he was black. I can't even imagine being in a interracial relationship back in the 1950s and the trials and tribulations the dealt with, even up North. Leeba risks every thing because she falls in love with Red but they lift each other up and encourage each other in ways that no one every had before.

While this novel focuses on the music industry and specifically the Blues, it is multi-layered. Ms. Rosen deals with race relations, sexism, bigotry, family drama, and substance abuse. Each of the characters she brings into the novel has a purpose for moving the story forward. The story starts off slowly but that's not to say things aren't happening, it's just that she's laying the ground work.

I loved Leeba. She was tenacious, generous, loving, tough and strong. She knew what she wanted and didn't hesitate to go and get it. She wanted to write songs, so she did. She wanted to get someone to perform and record them, so she pestered Leonard until he let her record it. Her love for Red never wavered, even when he was in self-loathing mode. She stuck by him through all the ups and downs, which is what any marriage goes through. They had more uphill battles than plateaus though.

As the decade moves on we see the music industry shift how it does business, how the music interest changes and how this affects the musicians. I can only imagine how hard it is to become irrelevant when it is your livelihood. We see the Chess brother's struggle with the changing of the tide as well.

If you have any interest in the Chicago Blues scene or music history in general than I highly recommend Windy City Blues. I don't think you will be disappointed.


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Julie's Review: What The Lady Wants

Author: Renee Rosen
Series: None
Publication Date: November 4, 2014
Publisher: NAL
Pages: 448
Obtained: from a friend
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Rating: 3.75/5
Bottom Line: Captivating
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Summary: In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, visionary retail tycoon Marshall Field made his fortune wooing women customers with his famous motto: “Give the lady what she wants.” His legendary charm also won the heart of socialite Delia Spencer and led to an infamous love affair. The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can’t imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night. Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation. But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893. ~amazon.com  

Review: What the Lady Wants A Novel of the Gilded Age is a fantastic journey into the past, the history of Chicago and the evolution of Marshall Field's. I LOVED the history in this novel. Being a native of the area, I enjoyed closing my eyes and picturing the Loop back in the late nineteenth-century. How electric it must  have been to help establish a city that no one thought would add value to the trade routes. Little did some people know that it would help establish some of the greatest railways and icons in the country.

Marshall Field was quite the visionary. He knew that women, specifically rich & sometimes bored women were the key to a successful business, even if his partner did not.  Its obvious that the partner goes bye-bye but it's not until later in the book do we know why. Frankly, it was a long time coming. Mr. Leiter is more suited to a small dry good store, not a grand shopping experience.

While I found parts of Marshall and Delia's romance intriguing, it really wasn't what kept me coming back and turning the pages. It was how Chicago grew into the Second City that had me turning the pages. I think Delia was a formidable woman for her time period but I do think her affair with Marshall, made her less powerful in society than she could have been. She could have made a real difference if she didn't let her affair cloud people's opinion of her.

It is clear that Ms. Rosen did a ton of research for this novel and I'm grateful for that. I love it when I can Google something I find interesting and see that an author got that detail correct. I think that's important when you are mixing fact with fiction.

I did admire the way that Delia took care of her family as they struggled during certain points in their lives. It made her a good sister, wife and aunt. I felt the recognition that she receives by family at the end of the novel was a long time coming for her.

If you are a history buff and specifically love the history of Chicago, then you should definitely pick up What the Lady Wants A Novel of the Gilded Age. If you are looking for a dynamic romance, then you might just want to focus on the history that lays at your feet with this one.

 I look forward to reading Renee Rosen's other novels as well.



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