The Girl from The Savoy: A Novel

by Hazel Gaynor

Overview

Presenting a dazzling new historical novel … The Girl From The Savoy is as sparkling as champagne and as thrilling as the era itself.

‘Sometimes life gives you cotton stockings. Sometimes it gives you a Chanel gown …’

Dolly Lane is a dreamer; a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but her life has been fractured by the Great War. Memories of the soldier she loved, of secret shame and profound loss, by turns pull her back and spur her on to make a better life.

When she finds employment as a chambermaid at London’s grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly takes a step closer to the glittering lives of the Bright Young Things who thrive on champagne, jazz and rebellion. Right now, she must exist on the fringes of power, wealth and glamor—she must remain invisible and unimportant.

But her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she responds to a struggling songwriter’s advertisement for a ‘muse’ and finds herself thrust into London’s exhilarating theatre scene and into the lives of celebrated actress, Loretta May, and her brother, Perry. Loretta and Perry may have the life Dolly aspires to, but they too are searching for something.

Now, at the precipice of the life she has and the one she longs for, the girl from The Savoy must make difficult choices: between two men; between two classes, between everything she knows and everything she dreams of. A brighter future is tantalizingly close—but can a girl like Dolly ever truly leave her past behind?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062403476
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	215,236
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.01(d)

About the Author

Hazel Gaynor is the award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of A Memory of Violets and The Girl Who Came Home, for which she received the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Romantic Novel of the Year award. Her third novel, The Girl from The Savoy, was an Irish Times and Globe and Mail bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. Her most recent novel, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, was a USA Today and Irish Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown Award. Hazel’s work has been translated into fourteen languages. She lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.

Editorial Reviews

06/06/2016
The echoes of the First World War influence every character of Gaynor's latest novel, set in 1923 London. Peacetime is giving Londoners a chance to recover and reinvent themselves, and Dolly Lane is hoping that her new job at the Savoy—the poshest hotel in the city—will help her do just that. After losing her fiancé to amnesia induced by shell shock, Teddy Cooper, Dolly dreams of a life on the stage. At first the other maids laugh at her ambitions of becoming a chorus girl, but then she answers an ad to be a muse to struggling composer Perry Clements. Perry introduces her to his sister, beautiful starlet Loretta May. Though the two women come from different backgrounds, both have survived losses and both are keeping secrets. As Loretta and Perry take Dolly under their wings, she finds her life as transformed as she had hoped. But even as she is launched to a lifestyle that includes couture gowns and champagne, her heart still aches for Teddy, whose shell shock has seemingly changed him for good. Dolly's path toward stardom and the secret that's been haunting her help push this historical novel toward a thoroughly satisfying ending. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Hazel Gaynor captures both the heartache and hope of England between the Wars in this richly imagined novel peopled with unforgettable characters, impossible ambitions and unexpected twists of fate. Once begun, I dare you to put it down.” — Kathleen Tessaro, New York Times bestselling author

“A disarmingly charming story of a young woman determined to make her dreams a reality... as sweet as a love song, as energetic as a tap dance and full of dazzling details about life in London after the disasters of the Great War. I won’t soon forget Dolly Lane...” — Jeanne Mackin, author of THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN

“Hazel Gaynor’s artistry as a storyteller shimmers like satin in THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY. Evocative, transportive and redemptive, this is an enchanting gem of story.” — Susan Meissner, author of Secrets of a Charmed Life

From the Publisher

Hazel Gaynor captures both the heartache and hope of England between the Wars in this richly imagined novel peopled with unforgettable characters, impossible ambitions and unexpected twists of fate. Once begun, I dare you to put it down.

Kathleen Tessaro

A disarmingly charming story of a young woman determined to make her dreams a reality... as sweet as a love song, as energetic as a tap dance and full of dazzling details about life in London after the disasters of the Great War. I won’t soon forget Dolly Lane...

Jeanne Mackin

Hazel Gaynor’s artistry as a storyteller shimmers like satin in THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY. Evocative, transportive and redemptive, this is an enchanting gem of story.

Susan Meissner

06/01/2016
Dolly Lane and her childhood sweetheart Teddy were tragically torn apart after he returned from World War I, suffering severe memory loss. Now working as a maid at London's grand Savoy Hotel and basking in her close proximity to celebrities, she dreams of becoming a star. Dolly also spends her free time at dance halls and theaters, one of many starstruck "gallery girls" seeking adventure. A chance meeting and response to a newspaper ad for a "muse" finally bring her into an elite circle of performers and producers, including her idol, acclaimed actress Loretta May. Alternating chapters share Dolly, Loretta, and Teddy's perspectives as all three fight private battles and keep secrets. Likable, hardworking characters advance the story quickly. The wide-ranging effects of the war lend a realistic atmosphere without diminishing the hopeful mood. Gaynor (A Memory of Violets) provides notes about the extent of her research, and these details make the 1920s come alive. VERDICT Suggest to fans of Sarah Jio and readers of historical fiction who like interconnected stories and don't mind a few coincidental plot points. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.]—Emily Byers, Salem P.L., OR

Library Journal

2016-03-30
A spunky young woman dances her way up from a job as a chambermaid at London's grandest hotel to a chorus girl and beyond during the Roaring '20s. Dorothy Lane is not known as Dolly Daydream for nothing. She may be washing clothes at London's famed Savoy Hotel, but her head is filled with Jazz Age fantasies of appearing in the West End or Hollywood. The hotel is full of celebs and glitterati, the so-called Bright Young People of British society, who fill the bustling ballrooms. In the first of a number of improbably lucky coincidences, Dolly literally bumps into Perry Clements, the brother of Loretta May, her superstar idol, on the street. Shortly thereafter, in another stroke of unlikely good fortune, Perry advertises for a "muse," and—surprise of surprises!—Dolly coincidentally answers the ad. At 32, Perry's sister is the breathtaking beautiful darling of the gallery girls, of whom Dolly is one: shop girls and domestics who fill the cheap theater seats and live on tabloid accounts of the stars. Though she's only a few years older than Dolly, Loretta is world-weary, awash in gin and morphine, with secret health issues. In a blend of "Cinderella" and Pygmalion, (spoiler alert, but isn't it predictable?), Dolly miraculously becomes Loretta's protégée. Gaynor (The Girl Who Came Home, 2012, etc.), a good storyteller, mars her tale by straining too hard for profundity and relying on hyperbole; Loretta describes Dolly as "the kind of girl one discovers perhaps once in a decade, a rough diamond waiting to be polished and brought out to dazzle for all the world to see." Though the book more than teases with romance-novel tropes—will Dolly end up with Perry or with her hometown amour Teddy Cooper, a solder broken by the Great War?—the only real romance here is between Dolly and the stage. This flapper-era cocktail ultimately has more fizzle than fizz.

Kirkus Reviews