Magnolia Palace, The: A Novel

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That's where she met Joshua and where they worked together on a scavenger hunt that was decades old and was a hunt devised by Helen Frick for her suitor. What I loved most about this book was that it sent me scouring Google for more information on the Frick Museum and Audrey Munson, on whom Lillian's character is loosely based.

Since Kitty's death, she'd felt a consistent, gnawing hunger in her gut that would only be satiated with butterscotch candies and lemon meringue pie. Fifty years later, 60’s fashion model Veronica Weber, on assignment from England has her own employment opportunity with Vogue, at a shoot taking place at the Frick Museum. The Magnolia Palace, has a dual timeline, both characters are models and find themselves in the Frick mansion and a half a century apart.

Rossi's bulging black eyes were punctuated by heavy brows, but any hint of menace was tempered by an unfortunately high-pitched voice. Sheer luck has her obtaining the position as personal secretary to Miss Helen Frick, the youngest daughter of Henry Clay Frick. Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this historical fiction in exchange for my honest review! You won’t be able to put in down and you’ll want to make plans to go see the Frick Museum for yourself.

Set in 1919 and 1966, the novel revolves around the Frick collection at the NYC museum Helen Frick founded after her father passed away. Nearly 50 years later,Veronica Weber has her own chance within the walls of the former Frick residence, now converted into one of NYC’s most impressive museums. Kitty had predicted the northward trend early and rented an apartment west of Broadway, which meant they were constantly running into potential employers, at the post office or the grocer's. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. With mother monitoring nearby, Lillian poses for breathtaking statues during the Beaux Arts period in New York City.

But the longer she works as a private secretary to the imperious and demanding Helen Frick, the daughter and heiress of industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick, the more deeply her life gets intertwined with that of the family - pulling her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels, and family drama that runs so deep, the stakes just may be life or death. On the run with aspirations of getting to Hollywood to become an actress she lands up, purely by accident at the door of the Frick mansion where they are expecting an applicant for the job of private Secretary to the imperious Helen Frick. Set in the early 1900's and 1960's it encapsulates those periods beautifully and all set against a New York city backdrop. In The Magnolia Palace, two very different women from two eras enter the Gilded Age realm of famous industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick and his imperious daughter Helen and become part of a thrilling mystery centered on the Frick mansion that stretches through the decades. She needs to get away and when she does she finds work as a secretary for the infamous Frick mansion.