The Wicked City: A Novel

· The Wicked City series Book 1 · Sold by HarperCollins
5.0
2 reviews
eBook
384
Pages
Eligible

About this eBook

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Certain Age, a deliciously spicy new Jazz Age adventure and the first book of a breathtaking new trilogy by bestselling author Beatriz Williams. Two generations of women are brought together inside a Greenwich Village apartment —a flapper hiding an extraordinary past, and a modern-day Manattanite forced to start her life anew.

When she discovers her banker husband has been harboring a secret life, Ella Gilbert escapes her SoHo loft for a studio in Greenwich Village. Her charismatic musician neighbor, Hector, warns her to stay out of the basement after midnight, when a symphony of mysterious noise strikes up—laughter, clinking glasses, jazz piano, the occasional bloodcurdling scream—even though the space has been empty for decades. Back in the Roaring Twenties, the basement was home to one of the city’s most notorious speakeasies.

In 1924, Geneva “Gin” Kelly, a quick-witted flapper from the hills of western Maryland, is a regular at this Village hideaway. Caught up in a raid, Gin lands in the office of Prohibition enforcement agent Oliver Anson, who persuades her to help him catch her stepfather, Duke Kelly, one of the biggest bootleggers in Appalachia.

But Gin is nobody’s fool. She strikes a risky bargain with the taciturn, straight-arrow Revenue agent, and their alliance rattles Manhattan society to its foundations, exposing secrets that shock even this free-spirited redhead.

As Ella unravels the strange history of her new building—and the family thread that connects her to Geneva Kelly—she senses the Jazz Age spirit of her exuberant predecessor invading her own shy nature, in ways that will transform her existence in the wicked city.

 

Ratings and reviews

5.0
2 reviews
Janice Tangen
19 January 2017
I have never read any of this author's books before, but I certainly will now. The premise is intriguing, the plot mobile, the characters engaging, the dialog great fun. The story reels you in while you just keep turning the pages. No spoilers, the publisher's blurb gives hints and clues but can't begin to prepare you for all the laughs and creativity. An excellent read, and I highly recommend it! I did enter and win a giveaway in which the book was provided by the publisher in expectation of a review.
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About the author

Beatriz Williams is the bestselling author of over a dozen novels, including The Beach at Summerly, Our Woman in Moscow, and The Summer Wives, as well as four other novels cowritten with Lauren Willig and Karen White. A native of Seattle, she graduated from Stanford University and earned an MBA in finance from Columbia University. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore, where she divides her time between writing and laundry.

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