"Astor Place Vintage" by Stephanie Lehmann~Wonderful Read!!

SUMMARY :

Amanda Rosenbloom, proprietor of Astor Place Vintage, thinks she’son just another call to appraise and possibly purchase clothing from a wealthy, elderly woman. But after discovering a journal sewn into a fur muff, Amanda gets much more than she anticipated. The pages of the journal reveal the life of Olive Westcott, a young woman who had moved to Manhattan in 1907. Olive was set on pursuing a career as a department store buyer in an era when Victorian ideas, limiting a woman’s sphere to marriage and motherhood, were only beginning to give way to modern ways of thinking. As Amanda reads the journal, her life begins to unravel until she can no longer ignore this voice from the past. Despite being separated by one hundred years, Amanda finds she’s connected to Olive in ways neither could ever have imagined.

More Reviews:

Kirkus Reviews

The past meets the present in Lehmann's work of feminist literary fiction. In 2007, 39-year-old Amanda indulges her interest in history by running a vintage clothing business in New York City. She is contacted by Jane Kelly, who, at 98, is getting rid of a lifetime's accumulation of stuff, selling whatever she can for whatever she can get. Amanda takes an old trunk full of clothing on consignment and, while going through the items, finds a journal, started in 1907 by a woman named Olive, sewn inside a muff. These two women are separated by a century but have a lot in common. Olive is rebelling against the 19th-century concept of a woman's "place" in society, and Amanda feels herself caught between two historic eras. Olive's mother died in childbirth, and she was raised by an upper-class, loving but conservative father. His fortune was lost in the stock market, and when he died, she became poor. The author presents compelling, often shocking historical details about the treatment of working women in the early years of the century. Meanwhile, Amanda, in contemporary Manhattan, is considering extricating herself from an affair with a man she dearly loves. Along the way, she visits a hypnotist. The tape she receives after her session introduces questions that bring her closer to Olive. The author combines an impressive knowledge of history, sociology and psychology to create an intellectually and emotionally rewarding story.


PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Touchstone Books/Simon & Schuster
Pages:  396  Plus Reading Group Guide
Genre:  Fiction/Historical Fiction
Author:  Stephanie Lehmann
Visit:  http://stephanielehmann.com or http://astorplacevintage.com


ABOUT THIS AUTHOR :

 Stephanie Lehmann received her B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. In English from New York University. She has taught novel writing at Mediabistro and online at Salon.com, where her essays have been published. Like Olive and Amanda, she lives in New York City.

For more information, please visit www.AstorPlaceVintage.com and www.StephanieLehmann.com.  You can follow Stephanie on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and tumblr.

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Want an addictive book to read this weekend?  This is the one.  From page one, it whisks you up and carries you to New York City in the present and the past combining the lives of two independent, beautiful women who are looking for "something else" in their stilted and lonely lives.  It's easy on the eyes and it tugs at something significant in a woman's heart.  This novel is "deeper" than it appears to be on the cover.  All the time, it's an entertaining and joyful read!

Stephanie Lehmann takes on real issues in the lives of all women and brings them current through the lives of two women connected through the lost journal of one of them...one from the early 1900's.  How similar their circumstances...wanting to be independent, wanting a love that will recognize them as who they really are and will validate their true strengths. This book touches on the issues women actually feel and experience even today.

I love the vintage pictures of New York that dress up the inside of the novel, and the background stories of the City, itself.  What a perfect tour guide through the ages passed along with the modern times.  What wasn't to love about finds for Amanda's vintage clothing shop, too!  Great fun to have the fashions described in detail. 

There are so many incidents to laugh, nod your head in agreement about, and be shaken to the core in this book.  It's a "keeper" and a book you'll want to share with all your friends.
I can't say enough good things about it.

5 stars                 Deborah/TheBookishDame

*Note:  Although the review and comments are strictly my own thoughts and feelings, this was brought to you in cooperation with:

Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours where you can find more reviews, guest posts and interviews about this book.  Please click on the link below:

http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/astorplacevintage/

"Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers" by Kirsten Miller~Interview!

 

 

SUMMARY :

 

When Kiki Strike flies off to Paris to try to stop her evil cousin, the princess Sidonia, from all sorts of terrible deeds, it's up to Ananka and the other irregulars to help Kiki find the cure for baldness, stop Oona's nasty twin from ripping off all the merchants in New York City, and keep Ananka herself from falling in love with exactly the wrong young man. Through the streets of New York, and all over the top and bottom of Paris, nothing stands in the way of these butt-kicking, fearless, and brilliant girls.

 

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

 

Published by:  Bloomsbury

Pages:  416

Author:  Kirsten Miller

Purchase the book:  Amazon

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

 

KIRSTEN MILLER lives with her family in New York City where she spends her time drinking coffee, exploring the city, and writing.

 

 

INTERVIEW WITH KIRSTEN :

 

Hi, Kirsten!  Thank you for coming onboard today for this interview.  I'm excited to get to know you better.  Your "Kiki" series is very strange and awesome (in a fantastic way!) and I'm looking forward to your fans knowing more about you, too.  So here we go:

 

 

First of all, please tell us a special something about what makes you “tick.”  When you aren’t writing, what are you doing?

 

Making weird stuff. I’m kind of a Gothic, less talented Martha Stewart. There’s nothing I love more than assembling a “cabinet of curiosities” to display little things I’ve collected over the years. (Bugs in resin, attractive bones, strange shells, anatomical figurines, etc.) I’m also very proud of a shadowbox I recently built, which shows a giant stag beetle baking a cake in a miniature kitchen. You get the idea.

 

The bizzare and the beautiful.  That doesn't surprise me!  :]

 

We’re always curious about where a writer chooses to write.  Could you tell us about your favorite place to write?  Describe it in detail…what’s on your desk, what do you see from the window if any…do you have a favorite lucky charm?

 

I write at my desk. In my office. In my house. In Brooklyn.

 

My desk is rather messy at the moment. (Which is unusual. I’m a notorious neat freak.) There are several stacks of books that I need to read—as well as books I just like to have around. (Example: Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies.) A guide to rooftop gardening. My computer. Lots of Post-Its with scribbled ideas for my latest project.

 

Right in front of me is a bulletin board covered with maps, pictures of my daughter (who’s the spitting image of Iris McLeod), and Kiki Strike-inspired art that’s been sent to me by Kiki fans. (There’s absolutely nothing more flattering than knowing you’ve inspired someone else’s art.)

 

Bronte or Austen?  Hemingway or Hawthorne?  Why?

 

I’m a big fan of all four authors. But if I had to choose . . . Bronte and Hawthorne. I love Gothic literature, with its damaged heroes, family curses and haunted houses. My daydreams are often set on “the moors.” And they often involve Mr. Rochester.

 

You and I are soul sisters, Kirsten!!!  Yay!!!

 

In your opinion, what makes a book a great one?

 

I would have offered a very different answer to this question a few years back. But today, I’d say a great book is one that has the ability to hold my interest for more than 25 pages. I simply don’t have the patience for books that aren’t entertaining. (Fortunately, there’s a very long list of subjects I find entertaining.)

 

Which author(s) most influenced your love of books? 

 

As a kid? Edgar Eager and Stephen King.

As an adult? Michael Chabon and Edgar Eager.

 

 

Read any good books in the past 6 months?

 

I’ve read quite a few. But I’m staring at a copy of Wicked Plants, which I picked up at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It kept me quite entertained for a few days!

 

 

Choose 4 guests from any era for dinner.  Who would they be and what would you choose for a topic of conversation?

 

I have some rather interesting ancestors with whom I’d love to spend time . . .

 

A gentleman who was kicked out of Plymouth Plantation for having “novel ideas.”

One of the women who was executed for witchcraft at Salem.

A man who was adopted by the unbelievably cool Amelia Bloomer.

Either of my grandfathers (who died when I was little). 

 

Topic of Conversation: Scurrilous Family Gossip.

 

 

Well, the top two were probably my relatives...We could meet for dinner as a substitute!  :]

 

 

There’s a song that goes along with your book, what is it?

 

Well, I have TWO books coming out in January/February.

 

Kiki #3, The Darkness Dwellers: A update of Maurice Chevalier’s “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” in which a bunch of little girls let the singer know exactly what they think of creepy old me.  

 

How to Lead a Life of Crime: Mark Ronson’s “Bang, Bang, Bang” and Foster the “People’s Pumped Up Kicks”

 

 

If you could cast your book for a movie, who would you choose for your 2 main characters?

 

If there’s ever a Kiki Strike movie made, I think it would be wonderful if the people in charge chose unknowns for the job. (The way Harry Potter was cast.)

 

 

Worst habit you have while writing?

 

Pushing myself too hard. I often work until I’m totally burnt out.

 

 

How much research did you do before and during writing this book?

 

I almost never do any research immediately before writing my books—because I always write about subjects (reincarnation, secret societies, man-eating rats) that have interested me for years.

 

The Darkness Dwellers is partially set in Paris—and most of the action takes place in the catacombs beneath the city. I did almost all of my “research” in 2006 when I lived in Paris. I actually visited the bone-filled catacombs by myself one day. It was probably one of the creepiest experiences of my entire life.

 

 

Psychologists tell us the thing we think we’d most like to grow up to be when we’re ten years old is our avocation.  What did you want to be?

 

An archaeologist or paleontologist. (Or anything that involved “detective work.”)    

 

Hmmm  Very close, Kirsten.   

 

Well, thank you for your visit.  You're decidedly awesome as your books!

 

 

 

 

As for the rest of you, please go directly to a book store and get a copy of one of Kirsten's books.  Preferably this new one:  "Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers."  You'll love all of them.

 

Deborah/TheBookishDame