Sara_S

Jeanne Mackin's latest novel provides its readers a moving yet entertaining story... With a historically-accurate backdrop of the time period surrounding the Paris fashion world during the lead-up to WW II as well as the war's aftermath, the story itself features Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli's rivalry. Mackin cleverly interweaves both factual and imagined scenarios in this microcosm of their years of competion and outright conflict... The protagonist - a young and newly widowed American schoolteacher - draws on the readers' sympathies as her life in Paris moves her into the worlds of fashion, art, and political uncertainty...

This would be a good read for an individual or book group seeking a fun romp with some historical significance and some ensuing foreseeable discussion...

Having just finished the book in much the same way I do any compulsively readable book - in one or two "good goes," I am struck by five thoughts, give or take:
1) This would appeal almost exclusively to a certain type of female audience. Men who choose history or historical fiction would find little or no new information in this particular read and would not select it. I echo other reviewers in that one or two women in my book group avoid any of this type of "unpleasantness" and would nix this as a group choice.
2) Many European readers whose antecedents survived the war in both the Western and Eastern theaters - from the pre-war 1930's well through its aftermath, will be all too familiar with the horrors, the fears, and the social interactions described as lived and reported by their own family members. A new generation of Europeans and perhaps North Americans readers for the first time will have their eyes opened to some uncomfortable truths.
3) The food tasters (for purposes of the plot) seemed to have a lot more freedom and slack supervision than would seem credible. Luckily, no one alive can contradict the author's version and apparently no further research has been done to contradict this otherwise.
4) We readers, as in real war, are left with many unanswered questions, ironically, save the fate of our female protagonist's husband. Rosa's Gregor for much of the book is presumed missing somewhere on the Eastern Front. The plot finishes up with that circumstance resolved.... just how effectively, the reader is left to ponder...
5) Our main character's mother was a Berlin dressmaker of some apparent skill - which seems a useful "chick lit" device that gooses up both the social interactions and the sexual situations involving her daughter Rosa - possibly consistent with a formulaic romance novel...
In summary, on the losing side of an unrighteous war, there are are very few heroes to be celebrated; even "survivor status" has its detractors - particularly among the survivors themselves...

Once past the discovery - that in our young author Lea Carpenter - Margaret Atwood meets John LeCarre - I could see my path through the woods and found my reading journey delightful. Through Atwood-like literary devices, she utilizes a female point of view in her brilliant yet vulnerable main character and deft handling of varying points in time in the crafting of this highly emotional yet controlled story. Told in two voices, one - the third person female of the lead character, and the other - a young male CIA case officer's detailed first person account of his experiences as they shed light on the lead character's father's sudden death and shadowy employment history, the story is propelled by the lead character's life events and painful losses, the least of them any pretensions to privacy in this media-focused, highly scrutinized world into which she is thrust.

Just as in LeCarre's novels - ethical ambiguity, expedient bureaucracies, insightful distillations, and timely 'political global atmospherics' take center stage - with individuals trying to hold fast their humanity.... I look forward to more from Ms. Carpenter and her main character Anna... an auspicious beginning for reader and writer alike?