The New York Times bestselling author of The
Library of Light and Shadow crafts a dazzling Jazz Age
jewel—a novel of ambition, betrayal, and passion about a
young painter whose traumatic past threatens to derail her
career at a prestigious summer artists’ colony run by Louis
Comfort Tiffany of Tiffany & Co. fame. “[M.J. Rose]
transports the reader into the past better than a time
machine could accomplish” (The Associated
Press).
New York, 1924. Twenty-four-year-old
Jenny Bell is one of a dozen burgeoning artists invited to
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s prestigious artists’ colony. Gifted
and determined, Jenny vows to avoid distractions and
romantic entanglements and take full advantage of the many
wonders to be found at Laurelton Hall.
But Jenny’s
past has followed her to Long Island. Images of her beloved
mother, her hard-hearted stepfather, waterfalls, and murder,
and the dank hallways of Canada’s notorious Andrew Mercer
Reformatory for Women overwhelm Jenny’s thoughts, even as
she is inextricably drawn to Oliver, Tiffany’s charismatic
grandson.
As the summer shimmers on, and the
competition between the artists grows fierce as they vie for
a spot at Tiffany’s New York gallery, a series of suspicious
and disturbing occurrences suggest someone knows enough
about Jenny’s childhood trauma to expose her.
Supported by her closest friend Minx Deering, a
seemingly carefree socialite yet dedicated sculptor, and
Oliver, Jenny pushes her demons aside. Between stolen kisses
and stolen jewels, the champagne flows and the jazz plays on
until one moonless night when Jenny’s past and present are
thrown together in a desperate moment, that will threaten
her promising future, her love, her friendships, and her
very life.