The Dollhouse

Enter the lush world of 1950s New York City,where a generation of aspiring modelssecretariesand editors live side by side in the glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success in this debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue. ΓÇ£Rich both in twists and period detailthis tale of big-city ambition is impossible to put down.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöPeople When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952secretarial school enrollment in handDarby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren’t: plainself-conscioushomesickand utterly convinced she doesn’t belongΓÇöa notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esmea Barbizon maidshe’s introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that’s used therethe startling sounds of bebopand even the possibility of romance. Over half a century laterthe Barbizon’s gone condo and most of its long-ago guests are forgotten. But rumors of Darby’s involvement in a deadly skirmish with a hotel maid back in 1952 haunt the halls of the building as surely as the melancholy music that floats from the elderly woman’s rent-controlled apartment. It’s a combination too intoxicating for journalist Rose LewinDarby’s upstairs neighborto resistΓÇönot to mention the perfect distraction from her own imploding personal life. Yet as Rose’s obsession deepensthe ethics of her investigation become increasingly murkyand neither woman will remain unchanged when the shocking truth is finally revealed.