Book du jour: The Girls at the Kingfisher Club
"By 1927 there were twelve girls who danced all night and never gave names, but by then the men had given up asking and called them all Princess."
Confession: I have a 12 Dancing Princesses novel in the trunk—it’s one of my favorite fairy tales, so I tend to be critical of retellings. No worries here—so many details are integrated, but in upredictable ways. The story plays like a wild riff on the original, very jazzy.
The writing beautiful, the characterizations sharp—not easy to do with twelve sisters, but I believed it. The plot whips along, all speed and lightness and fancy footwork on top, but desperation bubbling just underneath. Or really close to the surface, actually. And so often you’d glide along until you hit the sharp sting at the end of a sentence. Wow. I so enjoyed this book!
One surprise: to find it published as an adult title—I would have thought a YA editor would have snapped it up! Highly recommended for teens or adults.