Book Blurb:
What happens when a daughter's dream and a mother's sordid past collide?
New York, 1910. Seventeen-year-old Sylvie and her French-immigrant mother Justine eke out a living doing piecework in a tenement on the Lower East Side, while Sylvie attends school so that she can escape their life of poverty by becoming a teacher.
At least, that's what her mother believes should happen. Sylvie, though, has a different dream. She wants to be a star in the new moving pictures, just like the beautiful Vitagraph Girl. When she meets a dangerously handsome Italian boy at church one Sunday and he encourages her ambitions, she begins secretly taking steps toward the career she knows her mother won't approve of.
But Sylvie isn't the only one with secrets. Justine has kept her sordid past from Sylvie ever since they came to New York fifteen years before, stitching together a fabric of lies along with the shirtwaists she finishes every day, doing everything in her power to keep the truth from her daughter-that she fled Paris as a courtesan after committing a crime that could still get her arrested, or worse.
When Justine's past catches up with her in a single act of brutality, Sylvie witnesses what she thinks is her mother's betrayal and runs away during a freak blizzard, putting them both in grave danger.
Ambition, survival, and unexpected alliances combine in this mother-daughter story that proves love can conquer all-at a price.
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/thecourtesansdaughter
Author Bio:
Susanne Dunlap is the author of twelve works of historical fiction for adults and teens, as well as an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. Her love of historical fiction arose partly from her studies in music history at Yale University (PhD, 1999), partly from her lifelong interest in women in the arts as a pianist and non-profit performing arts executive. Her novel The Paris Affair won first place in its category in the CIBA Dante Rossetti awards for Young Adult Fiction. The Musician’s Daughter was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Bank Street Children’s Book of the Year, and was nominated for the Utah Book Award and the Missouri Gateway Reader’s Prize. In the Shadow of the Lamp was an Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award nominee. Susanne earned her BA and an MA (musicology) from Smith College, and lives in Biddeford, ME, with her little dog Betty.
Editorial Review:
The Courtesan’s Daughter by Susanne Dunlap tells the story of Sylvie and her mother Justine, a French immigrant. The two women are trying to survive in New York in the early 1900s. Justine wants nothing more than for her daughter to complete high school and study to become a teacher rather than a seamstress like herself. Sylvie isn’t so sure that is what she wants. Her deep ambition is to pursue a career as a movie star, a career that her mother would not approve of. When Sylvia meets a handsome Italian boy who encourages her to chase after her dreams, she goes behind her mother’s back to make that happen. Not only is she chasing her dreams but Sylvie is learning about new romantic feelings she has for the handsome Italian boy. Can he be truly trusted? At the same time, Sylvie has no idea that her mother is hiding her own secrets. What Sylvie doesn’t know is that Justine fled France as a courtesan after committing a crime that she has been trying to outrun for the last fifteen years. When Justine is confronted with her past, the two women will have to face betrayal and grave danger in ways they never expected.
“I’ll never know exactly why she chose that day. Maybe she sensed my altered mood, noticed, without saying anything, that something in me had changed lately.”
The characters in The Courtesan’s Daughter are very well-written and developed. They are incredibly relatable and it was easy to understand and empathize with their feelings. The relationship between Sylvia and Justine was a fantastically done mother-daughter relationship that was easy to reconcile with the time period, setting, and social station of the family. The interactions between the two were exactly what is to be expected between a teenage daughter who wants to please her mother but still has her own secret ambitions. Sylvie is also a wonderful stand-alone character. The author writes about Sylvie in a way that allows the reader to really empathize with her inner ambitions as she knows her mother and possibly the rest of society would not accept what she really wants. She is very much believable as a seventeen-year-old who is trying to discover what she wants out of life while also trying to not disappoint her mother. The betrayal she feels when Justine’s past is revealed is also very accurate and well-written.
To allow the reader to connect even more to the characters, the author uses alternating perspectives. Each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective so readers are able to understand what both Justine and Sylvie are going through personally that the other does not necessarily know about through much of the novel. This also allows the readers to understand decisions made by the characters that might seem harsh if only viewed from one perspective. It also proves to be an effective way to let the readers see into Justine’s past so that they can understand her secrets and experiences in a more authentic way.
“I thought I had left it all behind me by putting an ocean between myself and my past. Mais ça n’était possible. It was not to be.”
The author does a fantastic job creating an appropriate setting for New York City in the early 1900s. Dunlap has clearly done research in order to create a setting that is historically accurate and that she is able to clearly develop and describe. Her descriptions of everything from the nickelodeon theater to the gas lamps and tenements of the Lower East Side. She creatively paints vivid pictures for her readers which contributes to reader engagement in a positive way. It is easy to become immersed in the historical setting that Dunlap has expertly and accurately developed.
“A large camera with its bellows extended sat atop a wooden tripod, pointing toward the board. I had only ever seen a picture of a camera like that. A picture of something that took pictures. I smiled. Light flooded in from two large, widely spaced windows looking out over the street. On the opposite side of the room stretched a long table with electric lights above it, none of them lit, and at one end of the table, a heavy black curtain hung, hiding part of it.”
In addition to clearly researching the setting and history of that time period, it is also clear that Dunlap also put effort into researching different industries in the early 1900s including the clothing industry and early photography. She was able to describe Justine’s experience as a seamstress sewing shirtwaists. As Sylvie begins to pursue her dream of being in moving pictures, Dunlap displays her knowledge of early photography and motion pictures. She describes the process by which these things are created in a way that is believable and seems to be historically accurate.
Dunlap is also an incredible writer. Combined with her thorough research, her writing is captivating and engaging. This creates a fast-paced book that is easy to read and follow as well as incredibly easy to become immersed in. Once the reader gets through the first chapter or so, it is nearly impossible to put The Courtesan’s Daughter down.
“My heart banged against the walls of my chest. Alfonse, I hoped unknowingly, held my guilty secret hostage.”
Because The Courtesan’s Daughter is easy to read and get immersed in it is a fantastic book for readers just looking to try out historical fiction. New historical fiction readers will find that this book is engaging enough that it is a great way to dip their toes into the historical fiction genre. Seasoned historical fiction readers will love the research and historical accuracy that went into this book. Those whole loved the early 1900s or historical fiction about the plights of women will also adore The Courtesan’s Daughter by Susan Dunlap.
Dunlap’s incredible writing that is easy to read and highly engaging combined with her rich historical research and well-developed characters creates a book that is a joy to read. It is beautifully done, richly developed, and easy to read. All fiction lovers will find something to love about The Courtesan’s Daughter. Secrets and secret desires unfold to create a book that will stick with readers long after the last page.
*****
“The Courtesan's Daughter” by Susanne Dunlap receives 5 stars from The Historical Fiction Company and the “Highly Recommended” award of excellence
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