The Wedding Dress

The Wedding Dress

By: Danielle Steel

304 Pages

Release Date: April 28, 2020

Summary:

From the glamorous San Francisco social scene of the 1920s, through war and the social changes of the ’60s, to the rise of Silicon Valley today, this extraordinary novel takes us on a family odyssey that is both heartbreaking and inspiring, as each generation faces the challenges of their day.
 
The Parisian design houses in 1928, the crash of 1929, the losses of war, the drug culture of the 1960s—history holds many surprises, and lives are changed forever. For richer or for poorer, in cramped apartments and grand mansions, the treasured wedding dress made in Paris in 1928 follows each generation into their new lives, and represents different hopes for each of them, as they marry very different men.
 
From inherited fortunes at the outset to self-made men and women, the wedding dress remains a cherished constant for the women who wear it in each generation and forge a destiny of their own. It is a symbol of their remaining traditions and the bond of family they share in an ever-changing world. --bn.com

While it's not one of Danielle's best books, it's not one of her worst either. The storyline did captivate me, though the actual dress the book is named for has a very small role. The book is centered around Eleanor Deveraux- the bride the dress was made for- and her descendents. As you meet her, she is from a highly wealthy banking family. She marries a man of similiar wealth. I enjoyed their love story. It was reminiscent of earlier Danielle Steel books where the husband is always older than the bride. You watch a genuine love unfold and a bond that builds a life on. However, it all comes crashing down while on their honeymoon as the stockmarket crashes.

I enjoyed seeing how the main characters adjust to their new lives. I felt their storylines played out in a realistic way. You see strength rise from sources you wouldn't expect and you see the lasting scars created as lives are never the same again. 

Seeing Eleanor's life play out was intriguing. It wasn't all roses, nor was there an immediate happy ending. She conitues to endure heartbreaks through miscarriages and having her daughter, Camille, rebel. Heartbreak knocks on Eleanore's door again, but also leaves a ray of light to embrace- her granddaughter, Ruby. I do have to say that this book doesn't come with the typical happy ending you expect. Her characters learn to accept their reality and flourish within it. 

Overall, I wouldn't buy this book. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I didn't pay the just under $30.00 price tag. Fans of Danielle Steel will enjoy the story, but I don't see me reading this particular book of hers again. It's definitely one to get from the library. 

The Lions of Fifth Avenue

The Lions of Fifth Avenue

By: Fiona Davis

368 pages

Release Date: July 21, 2020

Summary:

It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she finds herself drawn to Greenwich Village's new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women's rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she's forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process.

Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she's wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-adverse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.   -bn.com

I'm a recent discoverer of the immensely talented Fiona Davis. I've been incredibly blessed to review most of her books. I have loved them all and while this one wasn't my favorite, it was a dleight to read. I've always loved how Miss Davis takes historical fictin out of it's preconcieved box. Rather than sticking with the traditional wars, she takes a thing from the past and wraps it up for us readers in an engrossing package. 

This particular story revolves around Laura Lyons- herself, immediate family and decendents. You start out with her happily married to her husband and living in the esteemed New York Cigty Public Library with their two children. Dreams she had of being a journalist had been placed on the backburner for women weren't typically with careers at the time. An opportunity presents itself with her being able to pursue her dream and the life she knew slowly unravels. Journalism schools allows her to see a world beyond what she currentlty knew. She meets people a woman who she knew from school, but now will open doors- and viewpoints- that she never purseud before. Over time the friendship changes her life in ways the heavily sheltered Laura couldn't have predicted. All this happens as her husband's job is under intense scruiteny as someone is discovered to be stealing books from the library. Within a short period of time, the life Laura started out with looks nothing like the life she ended up with. 

Decades later, Sadie is the granddaughter of the elusive Laura Lyons. By now she has been gone for many years, but more questions than answers appeared to be her legacy. When history repeats itself with new books thefts within the same library, that Sadie is now employed with, she's forced to dig deeper for explanations and those elusive answers. 

I was engrossed in most of the story. As with any reader, some aspects of the story were more intriguing than others. I was fascinated with life within the library. I never knew anyone actually lived within it's walls. I was equally intrigued with the whole journalism school aspect. Fiona Davis makes you feel you were there with each student, in Laura's case embarking on a rare adventure. 

Fans of Fiona Davis will not be disappointed. Once again, she takes an obscure thing in history and make you unable to put it down while she unravels a story within it. Some characters were more relatable than others. Readers will find their favorite to root. You will feel like you're among the characters while everything is happening.