This month’s list of books takes us from 1920s Seattle where an up-and-coming designer works to accomplish her dreams in The Roaring Days of Zora Lily to the stock market crash of 1987 where a Jewish family trades in their posh lifestyle for a life of crime in The Gimmelmans. In The Villa, we travel to Villa Aestas where two childhood best friends spend the summer while attempting to write their next bestsellers… only to discover the villa was the site of a murder in the 70’s. Last of all we have Julia, told from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover from George Orwell’s 1984.
The Roaring Days of Zora Lily
Noelle Salazar
If I could have lived in another time, the 1920s and 30s would be my kind of era. The Great Gatsby was one of my favorite classics, and The Roaring Days of Zora Lily took me back to that time. It was both the Jazz Age and the time of Prohibition, and Zora Lily finds her way in that world, falls in love, and struggles to go after her dreams.
While most of the novel takes place in 1924 Seattle (and a brief period in California), we start off in 2023 at The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where a restorer finds an unknown name underneath the label of a dress worn by the great Greta Garbo… leaving here to question, who is Zora Lily?
The discovery of a hidden label on a famous gown unearths the story of a talented young seamstress in this glittering novel of family, love, ambition, and self discovery by the USA Today bestselling author of The Flight Girls.
2023, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer’s label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?
1924, Seattle: Poverty-stricken Zora Hough spends her days looking after her younger siblings while sewing up holes and fixing hems for clients to bring in extra money, working her fingers to the bone just to survive. But at night, as she lies in the bed she shares with one of her three sisters, she secretly dreams of becoming a designer like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin.
When her best friend gets a job dancing in a club downtown, Zora is lured in by her stories of music, glittering dresses and boys. She follows her friend to the underground speakeasies that are at once exciting and frightening—with smoke hanging in the air, alcohol flowing despite Prohibition, couples dancing in a way that makes Zora blush and a handsome businessman named Harley. It’s a world she has only ever imagined, and one with connections that could lead her to the life she’s always dreamed of. But as Zora’s ambition is challenged by tragedy and duty to her family, she’ll learn that dreams come with a cost.
Releases 10/3
The Great Gimmelmans
Lee Matthew Goldberg
Set during the stock market crash of 1987, The Great Gimmelmans follows a Jewish family who trade in their plush lives for a life of crime. Aaron Gimmelman tells the story of how his father Barry, big time stockbroker, mom with her love of hats, older sister Steph with her pop star obsession, and little sister Jenny travel from New Jersey to Florida and beyond as they fill their RV ‘The Gas Gussler’ with stolen cash.
It isn’t long before they’ve made headlines, a debt to the mob is revealed, and the FBI is soon hot on their trail.
Will family patriarch Barry be able to keep the struggling family together? You’ll have to give it a read to find out!
Middle child Aaron Gimmelman watches as his family goes from a mild-mannered reform Jewish clan to having over a million dollars of stolen money stuffed in their RV’s cabinets while being pursued by the FBI and loan sharks. But it wasn’t always like that. His father Barry made a killing as a stockbroker, his mother Judith loved her collection of expensive hats, his older sister Steph was obsessed with pop stars, and his little sister Jenny loved her stuffed possum, Seymour.
After losing all their money in the Crash of 1987, the family starts stealing from convenience stores, but when they hit a bank, they realize the talent they possess. The money starts rolling in and brings the family closer together, whereas back at home, no one had any time for bonding due to their busy schedules. But Barry’s desire for more, more, more will take its toll on the Gimmelmans, and Aaron is forced into an impossible choice: turn against his father, or let his family fall apart.
From Jersey, down to an Orthodox Jewish community in Florida where they hide out, and up to California, The Great Gimmelmans goes on a madcap ride through the 1980s. Filled with greed and love and the meaning of religion and tradition until the walls of the RV and the feds start closing in on the family, this thrilling literary tale mixes Michael Chabon and the Coen Brothers with equal parts humor and pathos.
BUCKLE UP!
Releases 11/14
The Villa
Rachel Hawkins
The title of the latest book from bestselling author Rachel Hawkins is what had me hooked first, and then the fact that it was three stories in one had me completely sold on The Villa. The book starts off with Emily and Chess two best friends, Chess is riding high on her writing success from her self-help books, and Emily is struggling to complete the latest book in her cozy mystery series after her husband leaves her.
When Chess invites Emily to spend the summer with her at a Villa in Italy, Emily hopes that it will provide just the inspiration she needs… it’s only when she books her ticket that she finds out that there was a murder at Villa Aestas (formally known as Villa Rosato) in 1974.
Inspired to find out what really happened, Emily finds just the distraction she needs to write the novel she’s always wanted to write…
I finished this book in just two days, and I can’t wait for Rachel’s next novel coming out in January of next year!
The bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs returns with a brilliant new gothic suspense set at an Italian villa with a dark history.
As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.
Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.
As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.
Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.
Coming out next month…
Julia
Sandra Newman
An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell’s 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia.
Julia Worthing is a mechanic who works in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain—now called Airstrip One—has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember and is ruled by an ultratotalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, it is the world of Orwell’s 1984.
All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else. She is an ideal citizen: cheerfully cynical, always ready with a bribe, piously repeating every political slogan while believing in nothing. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime when necessary. Everyone likes Julia.
Then one day she finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story. JULIA takes us on a surprising journey through Orwell’s now-iconic dystopia, with twists that reveal unexpected sides not only to Julia but to other familiar figures in the 1984 universe. This unique perspective lays bare our own world in haunting and provocative ways, just as the original did almost seventy-five years ago.
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