The Memory Dress is my fourth novel and possibly my most glamorous story yet. Its opening scene takes place at Christie’s auction house in New York in 1997 during the sale of Princess Diana’s dresses. Eighty dresses were listed to sell that evening but only 79 did. One of them is missing and it is what happened to this missing dress that is the central mystery of my novel and the love story that unfolds over thirty years across its pages. Here is my title challenge to introduce you to some of the book’s key themes and characters.
T: Timelines
There are two in this book. The almost-present day in the Georgian city of Bath and London in the late eighties and early nineties.
H: Home
This is a key theme in the book. As my story opens, we meet my cast of characters who all have their own apartment in the same beautiful townhouse. They are strangers to each other at the beginning of the story, something that will have to change if they are going to save the one resident who really needs their help. Some very famous homes also feature in this book. The Holburne Museum in Bath is the fictional home of Bridgerton’s Lady Danbury, and Althorp, the childhood home of Princess Diana.
E: England
It’s where I live and where the book is set.
M: Memory
One of the most important themes in the book. Through my characters, I look at how we form and hold on to our most precious memories. How vital they can be in driving us forwards through life, but also how they can hold us back and distort the truth, making us doubt whether our recollections are fact or imagined.
E: Embroidery
This book offers a glamorous peek into the workroom of a royal dressmaker and the incredibly detailed and skilful process of designing and making clothes for one of the most famous women in the world.
M: Meredith
One of my key characters and the woman who will unite everyone else in the book, as we follow the details of her extraordinary marriage and the map she has made of it. But also her new friendship with fellow-resident Jayne who has a whole different set of issues to overcome.
O: Obituary
Not everyone will make it to the end of this story. Have your tissues ready, please!
R: Royalty
The story takes us on a tour of several royal locations, from Kensington Palace to the Royal Albert Hall, Spencer House, Althorp and Sandringham. Each location contributes a little more to solving the family mystery at the heart of the story.
Y: Yesterday
And beyond. This is a question that’s central to the book’s themes, do we all need to go back and face our failures and fears to move forward with our lives – no matter how painful that process may be? Will it ultimately make us stronger or is the past better left buried?
D: Diana
The book’s prologue is set at Diana’s June 1997 Christie's dress auction in New York. We discover that one of the dresses that is listed to sell is, in fact, missing, and that is the mystery that my present-day characters stumble across. Why was it missing? Who has it? And why is this relevant to a group of strangers more than twenty years later?
R: Race
The clock is very much ticking in this book. Meredith needs help and answers before it is too late.
E: Expectations
What do we have a right to expect from people we barely know? Are past traumas unduly influencing our expectations of the people closest to us? And just because someone expects something of us, is it our responsibility to meet those hopes? All these questions are tackled in The Memory Dress.
S: Style
While The Memory Dress has some big themes laced through it, it also has a very stylish backdrop – that of Princess Diana’s working wardrobe.
S: Secrets
Not everyone is telling the truth all the time, even if they believe themselves to be. And this is something that my two principal characters, Meredith and Jayne, grapple with.
A missing husband and a dress once owned by Princess Diana set two very different women on paths of discovery that will change both their lives forever in this dazzling new novel from the author of The Last Dress from Paris.
England, 2018: Jayne is quiet. She keeps to herself and has no grand expectations for her days. But after a chance encounter with her elderly neighbor, Meredith, Jayne is forced to reevaluate her determination to keep the world at a distance. Meredith's dust-covered home is chaotic and neglected. And slowly, Jayne starts to grasp that Meredith herself is quite lost. She can't seem to remember anything: what she last ate, when she last went out or saw her daughter, or even Jayne's name, despite what are becoming frequent visits.
But most alarmingly, Meredith can't remember where her husband is.
Unable to sit by and watch Meredith hurting, Jayne promises she'll find William. But how can she when the biggest clue Jayne has is a mystery itself: a stunning couture gown with a note declaring it a personal gift to Meredith...from Princess Diana.
England, 1988: Meredith is always calm. You have to be when working for one of the most iconic women in the world. Just as the stitches she uses to create Princess Diana’s wardrobe are steady and stable, so is Meredith. Until she finds herself feeling off-kilter and untethered by an unexpected connection with someone in the workshop. As Meredith finds herself swept up in life and love for the first time, everything she’s ever dreamed about seems in reach…if only she can be brave enough to take it.
Women's Fiction Historical | Romance [Berkley, On Sale: November 5, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593436837 / eISBN: 9780593436844]
Jade Beer is an award-winning editor, journalist, and novelist who has worked across the UK national press for more than twenty years. Most recently, she was the editor in chief of Condé Nast's Brides. She also writes for other leading titles, including the Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Glamour, Stella magazine, and is one of the Mail on Sunday’s regular fiction and nonfiction book reviewers. Jade splits her time between London and the Cotswolds, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
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