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Rich both in twists and period detail this tale of big-city ambition is impossible to put down. --People 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 1950s 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