September 4, 2020 | No Comments
The Lions of Fifth Avenue
by Fiona Davis
Date Published: August 4, 2020
Published By: Dutton Books
Page Count: 354
Publisher’s Description:
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick and a New York Times bestseller!
“A page-turner for booklovers everywhere! . . . A story of family ties, their lost dreams, and the redemption that comes from discovering truth.”—Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of The Shoemaker’s Wife
In New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis’s latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.
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 is 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. And 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-averse 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.
My Star Rating:
My Review:
The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dual timelines between 1913 and 1993, this was a book with powerful feministic undertones and family bonds that were bruised and battered but endured generations. In 1913, the double-standard was alive, well, and openly rampant, and I think women will appreciate Laura’s spunk and at the same time her grace as she fought to make a serious leap into the man-run world of serious journalism. And in both timelines, an added bonus for book lovers as the story focused on some invaluable first edition classic books that go missing from the archives of the non-lending library of Lions Avenue.