Rules of Civility

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Overview

The New York Times bestselling novel that "enchants on first reading and only improves on the second" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

This sophisticated and entertaining first novel presents the story of a young woman whose life is on the brink of transformation. On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

It's 1938 and twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent and roommate Evelyn Ross have moved to New York, determined to small-town Depression boredom with lively nights in the City That Never Sleeps. Determined to escape the clattering confines of a Wall Street secretarial pool, Katey searches for romance and advantage where she can find it; and find it she does, but in Amor Towles' polished debut, chance often trumps design. A stimulating look at a great city that no longer exists. (P.S. An early review justly predicted "Readers will quickly fall under its spell of crisp writing, spark,ling atmosphere and breathtaking revelations, as Towles evokes the ghosts of Fitzgerald, Capote and McCarthy.")

Publishers Weekly

In his smashing debut, Towles details the intriguing life of Katherine Kontent and how her world is upended by the fateful events of 1938. Kate and her roommate, Evelyn Ross, have moved to Manhattan for its culture and the chance to class up their lives with glamour—be it with jazz musicians, trust fund lotharios, or any man with a hint of charm who will pay for dinner and drinks. Both Kate and Evelyn are enamored of sophisticated Tinker Grey, who they meet in a jazz club; he appears to be another handsome, moneyed gent, but as the women vie for his affection, a tragic event may seal a burgeoning romance's fate. New York's wealthy class is thick with snobbery, unexpected largesse, pettiness, jealousies, and an unmistakable sense of who belongs and who does not, but it's the undercurrent of unease—as with Towles's depiction of how the upper class can use its money and influence to manipulate others' lives in profoundly unsavory ways—that gives his vision depth and complexity. His first effort is remarkable for its strong narrative, original characters and a voice influenced by Fitzgerald and Capote, but clearly true to itself. (July)

More Reviews (9) Fewer Reviews

the Oprah Magazine O

"The new novel we couldn't put down…in the crisp, noirish prose of the era, Towles portrays complex relationships in a city that is at once melting pot and elitist enclave – and a thoroughly modern heroine who fearlessly claims her place in it."

Good Housekeeping

"It's the Depression, and a gal Friday with a mouth like Dorothy Parker's is dallying with the smart set…turns out she's not the only climber. A joyride through the ups and downs of 1930s high society."

People

"Put on some Billie Holiday, pour a dry martini and immerse yourself in the eventful life of Katey Kontent…[Towles] clearly knows the privileged world he's writing about, as well as the vivid, sometimes reckless characters who inhabit it."

Redbook

"Part love story, part social observation, 100 percent absorbing."

The San Francisco Chronicle

"Even the most jaded New Yorker can see the beauty in Amor Towles' Rules of Civility, the antiqued portrait of an unlikely jet set making the most of Manhattan."

Wall Street Journal

"This very good first novel about striving and surviving in Depression-era Manhattan deserves attention…The great strength of Rules of Civility is in the sharp, sure-handed…evocation of Manhattan in the late '30s."

Library Journal

On New Year's Eve 1937, at a jazz bar in New York's Greenwich Village, Katey and Eve are charmed by the handsome and successful Tinker Grey. The three become fast friends and spend early 1938 exploring the town together, until a car accident permanently injures Eve. Feeling guilty, Tinker, the driver, takes care of Eve and unsuccessfully tries to love her. Despite the presence and initial impact of Tinker and Eve, though, this first novel is about Katey's 1938. Eve moves on, and Tinker fades, but Katey, the narrator, stays to challenge the New York bourgeois unwaveringly with her acerbic wit, capturing the attention of several doting men. She quits her job as a typist and pursues a career as editor of a respected, if risqué, society magazine. And Katey does it without a handout (she thinks). VERDICT Historical love story. Snappy dialog and sophisticated characters. A romantic look at the difficulties of being a New Yorker. But not, as the publisher suggests, reminiscent of Fitzgerald, though similar themes (class, betrayal, despair) arise. This novel would, however, make a nice (contemporary) companion to novels like The Great Gatsby and is thusly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 1/17/11.]—Stephen Morrow, Ohio Univ., Columbus

Kirkus Reviews

Manhattan in the late 1930s is the setting for this saga of a bright, attractive and ambitious young woman whose relationships with her insecure roommate and the privileged Adonis they meet in a jazz club are never the same after an auto accident.

Towles' buzzed-about first novel is an affectionate return to the post–Jazz Age years, and the literary style that grew out of it (though seasoned with expletives). Brooklyn girl Katey Kontent and her boardinghouse mate, Midwestern beauty Eve Ross, are expert flirts who become an instant, inseparable threesome with mysterious young banker Tinker Grey. With him, they hit all the hot nightspots and consume much alcohol. After a milk truck mauls his roadster with the women in it, permanently scarring Eve, the guilt-ridden Tinker devotes himself to her, though he and she both know he has stronger feelings for Katey. Strong-willed Katey works her way up the career ladder, from secretarial job on Wall Street to publisher's assistant at Condé Nast, forging friendships with society types and not allowing social niceties to stand in her way. Eve and Tinker grow apart, and then Kate, belatedly seeing Tinker for what he is, sadly gives up on him. Named after George Washington's book of moral and social codes,this novel documents with breezy intelligence and impeccable reserve the machinations of wealth and power at an historical moment that in some ways seems not so different from the current one. Tinker, echoing Gatsby, is permanently adrift. The novel is a bit light on plot, relying perhaps too much on description. But the characters are beautifully drawn, the dialogue is sharp and Towles avoids the period nostalgia and sentimentality to which a lesser writer might succumb.

An elegant, pithy performance by a first-time novelist who couldn't seem more familiar with his characters or territory.

Liesl Schillinger

With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age of screwball comedy, gal-pal camaraderie and romantic mischief…
—The New York Times

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780670022694
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 7/26/2011
Pages: 352
Sales rank: 711
Product dimensions: 6.16 (w) x 9.24 (h) x 1.18 (d)

Meet the Author

Amor Towles

Amor Towles was born and raised just outside Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale University and received an MA in English from Stanford University, where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. He is a Principal at an investment firm in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Read an Excerpt

It was the last night of 1937.

With no better plans or prospects, my roommate Eve had dragged me back to The Hotspot, a wishfully named nightclub in Greenwich Village that was four feet underground.

From a look around the club, you couldn’t tell that it was New Year’s Eve. There were no hats or streamers; no paper trumpets. At the back of the club, looming over a small empty dance floor, a jazz quartet was playing loved-me-and-left-me standards without a vocalist. The saxophonist, a mournful giant with skin as black as motor oil, had apparently lost his way in the labyrinth of one of his long, lonely solos. While the bass player, a coffee-and-cream mulatto with a small deferential mustache, was being careful not to hurry him. Boom, boom, boom, he went, at half the pace of a heartbeat.

The spare clientele were almost as downbeat as the band. No one was in their finery. There were a few couples here and there, but no romance. Anyone in love or money was around the corner at Café Society dancing to swing. In another twenty years all the world would be sitting in basement clubs like this one, listening to antisocial soloists explore their inner malaise; but on the last night of 1937, if you were watching a quartet it was because you couldn’t afford to see the whole ensemble, or because you had no good reason to ring in the new year.

We found it all very comforting.

We didn’t really understand what we were listening to, but we could tell that it had its advantages. It wasn’t going to raise our hopes or spoil them. It had a semblance of rhythm and a surfeit of sincerity; it was just enough of an excuse to get us out of our room and we treated it accordingly, both of us wearing comfortable flats and a simple black dress. Though under her little number, I noted that Eve was wearing the best of her stolen lingerie.

Eve Ross . . .

Eve was one of those surprising beauties from the American Midwest.

In New York it becomes so easy to assume that the city’s most alluring women have flown in from Paris or Milan. But they’re just a minority. A much larger covey hails from the stalwart states that begin with the letter I—like Iowa and Indiana and Illinois. Bred with just the right amount of fresh air, roughhousing, and ignorance, these primitive blondes set out from the cornfields looking like starlight with limbs. Every morning in early spring one of them skips off her porch with a sandwich wrapped in cellophane ready to flag down the first Greyhound headed to Manhattan—this city where all things beautiful are welcomed and measured and, if not immediately adopted, then at least tried on for size.

One of the great advantages that the midwestern girls had was that you couldn’t tell them apart. You can always tell a rich New York girl from a poor one. And you can tell a rich Boston girl from a poor one. After all, that’s what accents and manners are there for. But to the native New Yorker, the midwestern girls all looked and sounded the same. Sure, the girls from the various classes were raised in different houses and went to different schools, but they shared enough midwestern humility that the gradations of their wealth and privilege were obscure to us. Or maybe their differences (readily apparent in Des Moines) were just dwarfed by the scale of our socioeconomic strata—that thousand-layered glacial formation that spans from an ashcan on the Bowery to a penthouse in paradise. Either way, to us they all looked like hayseeds: unblemished, wide-eyed, and God-fearing, if not exactly free of sin.

Hailing from somewhere at the upper end of Indiana’s economic scale, Eve was indisputably a natural blonde. Her shoulder-length hair, which was sandy in summer, turned golden in the fall as if in sympathy with the wheat fields back home. She had fine features and blue eyes and pinpoint dimples so perfectly defined that it seemed like there must be a small steel cable fastened to the center of each inner cheek which grew taut when she smiled. True, she was only five foot six, but she knew how to dance in two-inch heels—and she knew how to kick them off as soon as she sat in your lap.

That New Year’s, we started the evening with a plan of stretching three dollars as far as it would go. We weren’t going to bother ourselves with boys. More than a few had had their chance with us in 1937, and we had no intention of squandering the last hours of the year on latecomers. We were going to perch in this low-rent bar where the music was taken seriously enough that two good-looking girls wouldn’t be bothered and where the gin was cheap enough that we could each have one martini an hour. We intended to smoke a little more than polite society allowed. And once midnight had passed without ceremony, we were going to a Ukrainian diner on Second Avenue where the late-night special was coffee, eggs, and toast for fifteen cents.

But a little after nine-thirty, we drank eleven o’clock’s gin. And at ten, we drank the eggs and toast. We had four nickels between us and we hadn’t had a bite to eat. It was time to start improvising.

Eve was busy making eyes at the bass player. It was a hobby of hers. She liked to bat her lashes at the musicians while they performed and ask them for cigarettes in between sets. This bass player was certainly attractive in an unusual way, as most Creoles are, but he was so enraptured by his own music that he was making eyes at the tin ceiling. It was going to take an act of God for Eve to get his attention. I tried to get her to make eyes at the bartender, but she wasn’t in a mood to reason. She just lit a cigarette and threw the match over her left shoulder for good luck. Pretty soon, I thought to myself, we were going to have to find ourselves a Good Samaritan or we’d be staring at the tin ceiling too.

And that’s when he came into the club.

Eve saw him first. She was looking back from the stage to make some remark and she spied him over my shoulder. She gave me a kick in the shin and nodded in his direction. I shifted my chair.

He was terrific looking. An upright five foot ten, dressed in black tie with a coat draped over his arm, he had brown hair and royal blue eyes and a small star-shaped blush at the center of each cheek. You could just picture his forebear at the helm of a schooner—his gaze trained brightly on the horizon and his hair a little curly from the salt sea air.

—Dibs, said Eve.

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sblaser

Posted July 27, 2011

Saucy and sophisticated: highly recommend!

I flew through Rules of Civility in two sittings -- two, only because I had to go to work in between! It's the kind of book you hope for in a summer read but can never quite seem to find: witty and fun without leaving you feeling like you've eaten cotton candy or insulting your intelligence. Towles' New York City is so textured -- from the gritty Lower East Side of the 30s to the smooth-like-velvet Upper East and West -- I found myself wanting to go back in time and drink a martini with his heroine, Katy Kontent and the wacky cast of characters she finds herself among. What a pleasure to have found a smart summer read!

15 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
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-Madison-

Posted September 7, 2011

I Also Recommend:

An sxciting book!

In Rules of Civility the setting is Manhattan in the late 1930's. I enjoyed the history of what New York City was like during that era through the eyes of a young woman surviving on her own in the city. The description of the culture of the carefree young in an exciting city was exciting to me. Kate, the main protagonist, is a smart, sassy independent girl who takes charge of her own life and if she isn't happy about something she fixes the problem. Frankly, I was surprised at the freedom women had from the perception I've always had before women's lib. I enjoyed the penetrating storyline so much, of its setting and the bigger ideas that are presented in the mix of people and social organizations, introspection, question of civility in all things. It was a much more social time when technology seems to limit the necessity. Madison Pridgen, A member of Between the Lines book club

12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
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Coconut_Librarian

Posted August 11, 2011

more from this reviewer

My FAVORITE book of 2011 so far!

Type: {Impress Your Friends Read: notable; prize-winner or all around intelligent crowd conversation piece.}
Rating: {An Unputdownable: Couldn't eat or sleep until I finished this book.}

Why You're Reading It:

- You want to read the book that I am calling my favorite of the year, so far!
- New York City, 1930's? You're hooked!
- A smart, witty, & complex variety of characters are enough to convince you to read a book.
- Beautiful prose, continuously moving plots, rich details, and convincing story lines make a book a keeper in your eyes.

What I Thought:

Hello, and welcome to New York City in the 1930's. Not only will you find the glamour, the music, the lingo, and the romance of one of the golden ages of the city, you will also meet one of the most refreshing protagonists in literature - Katey Kontent. Let's follow Miss Kontent through a flashback to the year of 1938 - a year that defined her life - and meet the exquisite cast of characters that Amor Towles creates on the pages of his debut novel, The Rules of Civility. Against the backdrop of a time when anyone could become anything and women were starting to make their own paths to the top, Towles creates a peephole back through time that has you turning page after page wishing you could actually be there, even just for a moment, to catch a glimpse of the sleek and confident Anne, the charming Tinker, the lively Eve, sweet and sincere Wallace, or intelligent, witty, down-to-earth Katey. (This is the second book of the year with a character named Wallace. Though I'm still waiting for a female Wallace to emerge in literature - this book's Wallace was a tribute to the name!)

My very favorite read this year, landing a spot on my favorite books ever, I was absorbed by this delicious novel. Balancing the thin line between eating it up in one bite but knowing how much I would regret doing that once it was finished - I paced myself so that I could enjoy the company of this book for as long as possible. Towles did an extraordinary job of creating the scene, making realistic characters, and spinning a plot that a reader can care about. The lessons in these pages are timeless even if the era in which they are portrayed is exact (and thoroughly enjoyable). I highly, highly recommend this book to everyone. There are very few books that I re-read, but this will be one of them. The charming dialogue, the poignant passages, the intelligent references, and the three-dimensional characters make this poetic, philosophical book, about life and the individual experiences that shape it, fun to read and easy to digest.

Over and over, I exclaimed to myself (out loud of course, because it doesn't count if people don't think you're crazy), "I love this book. I LOVE this book!" I also can not get over how much I adore the character of Katey; and how fast they will probably turn this into a movie (and probably should), but how very, very sad I'll be because this is a book that belongs to the imagination - it's that magical.

10 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted July 26, 2011

The Stunner of the Summer (and beyond!)

An utterly satisfying, elegant, literary and delicious novel that puts front and center one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with. This is the story of Katey Kontent, inauspiciously born and raised by a Russian immigrant father on the Lower East Side, she's made her own way through gritty, Depression-Era New York to find herself holding her own in the secretarial pool of a white collar law firm. With her endlessly curious mind, originality and irreverence, she's clearly made for more, but it's not until a chance encounter with the patrician banker, Tinker Grey, that she is granted the possibilty of entree--for better and for worse--into an exclusive world of New York's Haute Monde. This is a coming-of-age novel, a love letter to New York City during a moment of artistic foment, a study of class and manners, and an unexpected love story wrapped in one. If you love Hornby, Nicholls, Melissa Bank, Midnight in Paris, Mad Men, Aaron Sorkin and/or Capote, you will not be able to resist this one.

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Roxy0909

Posted July 28, 2011

more from this reviewer

Wonderful!

It took me two days to read this book I couldn't put it down! It was well written and expressed every emotion possible. I was surprised by the ending of the book it definately shocked me. The characters were engrossing and the details to the era down to the clothes were awesome. I am recommeding this to my friends and family.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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GoodHeartedWoman

Posted August 4, 2011

A Great Summer Read!

I enjoyed this novel more than I've enjoyed anything else, in a long time. The characters are believable and well developed. I was very sad to see 1938 come to an end!

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted July 29, 2011

Really enjoyable book - great read!

RULES OF CIVILITY is fun, sophisticated and witty! A fantastic debut by Towles; I couldn't put it down! Definitely a must-read for the summer.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted August 23, 2011

A sophisticated, historical, character-driven exciting romp through 1938.

I didn't know what to expect from this book. But I can say I couldn't put it down. Following Katey Kontent (that's content like happy not KON-tent like content of a book thank you very much) and her friend Eve, whom she affectionately calls Evey, is full of twists and turns and surprises that I didn't even see coming. It's characters and scenery of NYC during 1938 are so well evolved and scandalous and rich and beautiful and sumptuous, you can almost feel what they are wearing and eating and drinking and seeing! The writing, the story, the words are so sophisticated, so dreamy, so lifelike, you can picture the entire story in your head. I even starting seeing is a movie in my head and thinking of stars who would play the parts because the book so vividly takes you back to a bygone era of gin and whisky and jazz bars and good ol fashioned blue blood antics and sassafrass. It's a must read.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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thewanderingjew

Posted February 11, 2012

In this story, the rules of civility and the rules of duplicity occupied the same space, living side by side, until the characters found themselves. Whether they were successful is subject to interpretation.

In the mid 1960’s, at a photography show, Katey Kontent tells her husband that she recognizes one of the subjects in two pictures. He is shown in two versions of himself, one as a rich man and another as a poor one. His upper crust photo is not the latest one, as her husband thought. Katey’s memory is jarred and the story proceeds backwards. almost thirty years, to the 1930’s and the time she met Theodore “Tinker” Grey. America has come out of the depression. Young people are finding work. Women have few opportunities to advance in the working world; secretarial skills are paramount. Seeking a husband, preferably well-heeled, is the goal of many. Social climbing has become an art form. This is a story about ambition, about how people behave, about their hopes and how they go about achieving them, about social justice and injustice, perception, true and false. It is as much about class distinction as it is about the blurring of those lines. There is a proper way to behave befitting those in polite society and those imposters, as well, that seek to join that rarefied atmosphere. Running through the book is a central theme about manners, manners based on a little primer, handwritten by George Washington, containing 110 rules of civility. They govern every conceivable kind of behavior, public and private, which a lady or gentleman or impersonator of such, would follow, to appear well-bred. It is as much about the arrogance of the rich as it is about the impertinence of the poor. It is a story about real people, how they seek happiness, friendship, love, about rivalry and misunderstandings, hopes and dreams. It is about which of our goals are important and why. It is about Katy, and those of her era, coming of age, coming into their own. The book is about wealth, the kind one is born to, the kind one dreams about. It is about civility and also about duplicity. There is so much deception that no one really knows anyone’s true background. It would seem the characters have all written a portion of their own biographies as they all impersonate different persona, sneaking in and out of the world of the rich and famous with aplomb and then back into the world of the working poor. The book makes it seem easy. The author defines the characters so well, you can visualize them. He uses every world with precision so that it has perfect pitch and meaning. The times and places are captured perfectly. The expressive use of vocabulary was a listening extravaganza. Because I listened to an audio, and there were so many characters, I did sometimes lose the thread of the dialogue. Even when I rewound, I couldn't recapture what I missed. Sometimes, places and characters appeared, seemingly at random, then disappeared and reappeared again later on. Occasionally, I was left unable to remember what role they played in the narrative. In a hard copy, I could easily have looked back. In the end, however, all the characters were accounted for and all the missing pieces were tied together and explained so I lacked nothing for having listened to, rather than read, the written word. The reader was excellent.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Chelle11

Posted February 9, 2012

more from this reviewer

A Stand Out Novel

The author has captured the era of the late 1930's and created characters that are so intriguing with a storyline that keeps the reader definately engaged. A definate top of the books to read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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gracegee

Posted November 16, 2011

Best in awhile

I was hooked from the first few pages. It had been awhile since I so fell in love with a main character. Such a great read, I felt like I was in 1938. I wish there was more!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted October 21, 2011

Cannot live up to the title or era

This book is a great disappointment. If you love Edith Wharton and are expecting to find more of the like, then don't bother. The text lives up to neither the cover photo or the title. The characters are flat and grossly undeveloped, and there is no sense of place, location, or period. I am forcing myself to finish ONLY because I spent $13 on the e-book and don't want to get in the habit of ordering and abandoning books just because it is so easy.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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NatalieZ

Posted September 20, 2011

Simply a fantastic read!!

Smart, witty, funny, exquisitely sophisticated and well written! Great characters set in the history of NYC truly evoke the aura of Fitzgerald & even at times a bit of O.Henry. One of the best books I've read in years, possibly ever! Mr. Towles would do the reading public a great service if he continued writing after this first novel...

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Tine06

Posted September 1, 2011

Loved it!

Loved this book. I felt like I was actually experiencing 1938 in NYC. The book brought images of jazz clubs, the Plaza, and the 21 club to life. When people actually dressed up to go out and it was fashionable for women to smoke and drink gin. The only complaint, and it's not so much a complaint, is my expection of the book was that it was a story of a relationship between Katy and Tinker and that would be the main plot. But actually it was a year (1938) in the life of Katy Kontent and all of her relationships and experiences that year. Still a very enjoyable book. Made me think how I would be living in that era.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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bookclubbed

Posted August 22, 2011

Don't miss this one!

Having been a voracious reader in a reading slump for many months, I was so delighted to have found "Rules of Civility" in my new books bag. I purchased this book for a book club and I am the first to read it. I can't wait to report to everyone I actually finished a book and was sorry to see it end. I rarely give glowing book reports because I think other members may be disappointed when they take the time to read my recommendation. In this case, I have no doubt all the members of my three book clubs will be delighted with this selection. I agree with the other reviewers in their accolades about the characters, the writing style, the transportation to other places, etc. This book was a guilty pleasure that made me stop everything just to read and to get totally lost in another time and place. More than just enjoying reading, this book made me think about the choices I had made along the way.

I know "Rules..." was carefully researched and beautifully written and must have taken some time to complete but I am just hoping that I don't have to wait too long for Mr. Towles' next book.

P.S. I was definitely surprised that was a male author.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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catwak

Posted August 19, 2011

Entertaining

This is the perfect book to read when you have a summer cold, which is how I read it. The heroine, Katey, has a pedigree that resembles Daisy Buchanan out of Lily Bart. Her moral compass in choosing among her options is almost too good to believe. The writing, particularly the dialogue and the descriptive evocation of place and time, is superb. (An example, summarizing a character's affinity for jazz: "It was everything he liked about the world: you could smoke to it, drink to it, chatter to it. And it didn't make you feel guilty for not giving it your full attention.") Nevertheless, I refuse to award more than 3 stars to any writer who doesn't acknowledge that "lay" is a transitive verb.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted May 22, 2012

Highly recommended

A beautifully written portrait of New York in the 30s. Perfectly paced; the charachters really come to life.
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Anonymous

Posted April 25, 2012

Just ok

Was disapointed .. seemed to drag on. Beginning was interesting but the rest i felt was unbelievable.. very slow
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Anonymous

Posted March 18, 2012

Highy recomended

Great book for New York City history lovers. As well as anyone that enjoys great fiction. Not as much of a romance story as I thought it would be. The dialog, realistic story as well as playful and well developed character's made this a good cozy read.
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Anonymous

Posted March 12, 2012

Loved it

Beautifully written page turner.
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Saucy and sophisticated: highly recommend!

An sxciting book!

My FAVORITE book of 2011 so far!

The Stunner of the Summer (and beyond!)

Wonderful!

A Great Summer Read!

Really enjoyable book - great read!

A sophisticated, historical, character-driven exciting romp through 1938.

In this story, the rules of civility and the rules of duplicity occupied the same space, living side by side, until the characters found themselves. Whether they were successful is subject to interpretation.

A Stand Out Novel

Best in awhile

Cannot live up to the title or era

Simply a fantastic read!!

Loved it!

Don't miss this one!

Entertaining

Highly recommended

Just ok

Highy recomended

Loved it