Tiffany Girl

I had a hard time with DeeAnne Gist's last book that I reviewed here, and some of the same issues exist with her newest offering: Tiffany Girl. The essence of the story revolves around the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, and some of the exhibits and exhibitors. Louis Tiffany has been commissioned to do a series of twelve stained glass windows and needs to hire some "Tiffany Girls," so he goes to the art school to choose some of the more promising art students to fill in for the men who have gone on strike. Among those girls is Flossie Jayne, a New Woman who wants to assert her independence with a job, her own money, and her own place to live. In her new boarding house, she rooms next door to a newspaper reporter, Reeve Wilder, who doesn't have many good things to say about these New Women. In fact, he writes a satirical piece on the New Woman, Marylee Merrily, basing her very closely on Flossie. He never intended for the piece to be published, but it got submitted with some of his other work and now his editor wants a whole series. The residents of the boarding house gather every week for the next installment of the satire, enjoying it immensely. It wasn't what Reeve intended, but it was out of his hands.

In this book, there are sympathetic characters, bad-guy characters who prey on the innocents, and enough filler characters to make the story flow. My problem with this book is the way the story leaps over periods of time. Sometimes it's only a couple of days or a week or two, other times it is months to more than a year. Overall the novel is a good read, a solid four stars.

My thanks to Howard Books for allowing me to read and review this novel.