Grab this new title from a debut novelist. It’s vintage and deadly — and doesn’t hit shelves until August. Thanks to Leila at Penguin Random House for the title.

9781101984994from the publisher

Fiona Davis’s stunning debut novel pulls readers into the lush world of New York City’s glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where in the 1950’s a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side-by-side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon’s glitzy past.

When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren’t: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn’t belong—a notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she’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 there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance.

Over half a century later, the 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.

About the author

Fiona Davis was born in Canada and raised in New Jersey, Utah, and Texas. She began her career in New York City as an actress, where she worked on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional theater. After 10 years, she changed careers, working as an editor and writer and specializing in health, fitness, nutrition, dance and theater.


 To win:

  1. Leave a comment: What era of New York City would you like to live in?
  2. Include your email in the following format: name (at) service (dot) suffix
  3. Have a US mailing address.
  4. Wait until May 16, 6 p.m. EST. 

I will choose (up to) 25 comments and use the provided email address to contact the winners. Good luck!

The giveaway is now closed. Thank you for entering!

8 thoughts on “ARMCHAIR BEA 16: Giveaway #4”

  1. Since reading Time and Again by Jack Finney, I’ve had a fondness for 1890s New York. Though as other posters have said, now is probably a better time to be female there. lory (at) emeraldcitybookreview (dot) com

  2. I would love to live in NY current day. I always am interested in what’s going on in NY right now. michele (at) mccarthy (dot) net

  3. What a fascinating time period to read about! As for me, while I would like to read about the previous time period, I’d like to visit NYC now. Like the previous poster, I like the current era just fine lol! It would be hard to be a woman back then. Christina @ Ensconced in Lit, ensconcedya at gmail dot com

  4. I think I would want to live in the 1960s or 1970s New York. I always thought I would enjoy that time more than the 80s and 90s.
    Email: azprettygrl (at) hotmail (dot) com

  5. I’d love to live (or at least visit once) NYC now. Besides that I’m not sure. Glitz and glamour is nice but I doubt I’d be lucky enough to have that if I picked a different era, lol.

    broke(.)book(.)bank(@)gmail(.)com

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