Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2014
Pages: 448
Rating: Recommend
Synopsis: In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, visionary retail tycoon Marshall Field made his fortune wooing women customers with his famous motto: “Give the lady what she wants.” His legendary charm also won the heart of socialite Delia Spencer and led to an infamous love affair.
The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can’t imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night.…
Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation.
But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893.
Review: This book is not a literary masterpiece, not even close, but when I have to follow up something like The Nightingale, I need fluff and inconsequential reads. I also love reading anything set during The Gilded Age. It's just so fascinating to me.
The author comes right out and states that she took a lot of liberties telling the story of Marshall Field and Delia Caton so I can appreciate that.
Other Renee Rosen Novels:
Windy City Blues
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