Book Review: The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis
Length: 368 Pages
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

A special thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for sending me an ARC of this book!

My favorite two genres have always been fantasy and historical fiction, and though I'm branching out more now (there's simply too many good books out there to be reigned in by one genre!), I'll always love them the best. And because I do love them so, I'm much harder on them. I read this book in about two-and-a-half days, which is rare for me as I'm (sometimes unfortunately) a pretty leisurely reader. But I simply couldn't put it down! I think I've found a new favorite, and I've happily added Ms. Davis' other works to my TBR.

1919, New York City. The world is teetering on the cusp of change; hemlines are getting shorter, along with hair, cut sleekly into bobs, and young people are ready to live life to the fullest, to party and drink the night away with the dawning of the Jazz Age, and to perhaps forget all that's been lost, to war and to the recent and deadly outbreak of Spanish Flu. 

Lillian Carter is a modern woman -- unfortunately the rest of the world is just now playing catch-up. Since the age of fifteen she has posed, in various states of undress, for countless artists, who have molded her form into dozens of sculptures all over New York. With her mother's help she became Angelica, the perfect model. Unfortunately, the art world is fickle, and, after her mother's death from the Spanish Flu, Lillian is low on both cash and friends. When her groping landlord kills his wife, and she is falsely implicated in a love-triangle between them, she runs, desperate to flee the accusations and to make a better life for herself. By luck -- whether it be bad or good -- she happens upon the illustrious Frick house, and into the position of personal secretary to the mercurial Helen Clay Frick. Now all she needs to do is last long enough to get some money to hightail it to California, where a movie producer promises her a life on the screen. Only Lillian is unexpectedly caught up in the controlling, tragic, volatile -- and eventually, murderous -- web that is the Frick family.

1966, New York City. If they thought the ankle-brushing dresses of the '20s were scandalous, they had another thing coming with miniskirts. Veronica Weber is a model of a new age, originally from London and sporting a mushroom-style haircut courtesy of her mother's shears. She's desperate to make enough money to free her disabled twin, Polly, from the home she's been put in after the tragic death of their father. When she gets the chance to model for Vogue, things finally seem to be going her way. The first part of the shoot takes place in the Frick house, now a museum and ode to the past, but after a quarrel with the tyrannical photographer, she is left locked inside during a blackout due to a snowstorm. Luckily, she isn't alone: intern Joshua is there, too. When Veronica stumbles across a series of letters, a part of a scavenger hunt long forgotten, they decide to follow them. What they don't expect is to find a clue that will unravel a decades old mystery, and possibly, make Veronica's fortune.

I've heard of the other illustrious New York families dozens of times: the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, but I've never heard of the Fricks, whose wealth seemed to come at a terrible price. The family was plagued by misfortune, childhood deaths and assassination attempts, a fraught relationship between the surviving children, which was only exacerbated by the reading of their father's will. But this oftentimes ugly family dynamic was surrounded by incomparable beauty -- sculptures and Fragonard's, gold and Gainsborough's. It was amazing to learn that this house-cum-museum is a real place, one that you can even tour! I loved Lillian's personality, and while I didn't click with Veronica as much, I could understand her undying devotion to her sister, being a sister myself.

This book is a beautiful confection of historical fiction and fact, mystery, a study on family dynamics, and ultimately, a tale of forgiveness. It's a must read for any history lover, and I have no doubts that it's going to be one of the best of 2022.