THE MANHATTAN GIRLS by GILL PAUL Buy the Book • Goodreads
It’s a 1920s version of Sex and the City, as Dorothy Parker—one of the wittiest women who ever wielded a pen—and her three friends navigate life, love, and careers in New York City. Perfect for fans of Fiona Davis, Beatriz Williams, and Renée Rosen.
NEW YORK CITY 1921: The war is over, fashions are daring, and bootleg liquor is abundant. Here four extraordinary women form a bridge group that grows into a firm friendship.
Dorothy Parker: renowned wit, member of the Algonquin Round Table, and more fragile than she seems. Jane Grant: first female reporter for the New York Times, and determined to launch a new magazine she calls The New Yorker. Winifred Lenihan: beautiful and talented Broadway actress, a casting-couch target. And Peggy Leech: magazine assistant by day, brilliant novelist by night.
Their romances flourish and falter while their goals sometimes seem impossible to reach and their friendship deepens against the backdrop of turbulent New York City, where new speakeasies open and close, jazz music flows through the air, and bathtub gin fills their glasses.
They gossip, they comfort each other, and they offer support through the setbacks. But their biggest challenge is keeping their dear friend Dottie safe from herself.
In this brilliant new novel from the bestselling and acclaimed author of Jackie and Maria and The Secret Wife, readers will fall right into Jazz Age New York and into the inner lives of these groundbreaking, influential women.
Gill Paul has written eleven historical novels, many of them re-evaluating real 20th-century women and trying to get inside their heads. Her books have reached the top of the USA Today, Toronto Globe & Mail, and UK Kindle charts, and have been translated into twenty-one languages.
Gill was born and raised in Scotland, apart from an eventful year at school in the US when she was ten. She worked as an editor in non-fiction publishing then as a ghostwriter for celebrities, before giving up the “day job” to write fiction full-time. She also writes short stories for magazines and speaks at literary festivals about subjects ranging from the British royal family to the Romanovs.
Gill swims year-round in an open-air pond—“It’s good for you so long as it doesn’t kill you”—and loves travelling whenever and wherever she can.
