7. The Luxe

The Luxe by Anna Godberson is the first book in a four-part series. I read this book and about half of its sequel about a year ago, but never quite had the time to finish the series. Last week, I saw all four books of the series sitting together on the library shelf. I knew I had to get them. So I got all four of them. This one took me about two days to read. I've already begun the second.

The Luxe is about the elite society of 1890s New York City. The main characters are two sisters, Elizabeth and Diana Holland; Henry Schoonmaker, Elizabeth's fiancee, who actually loves Diana; Will, a Holland family servant and Elizabeth's real love; Penelope Hayes, Elizabeth's best frenemy, who loves Henry; as well as a host of other minor characters like their servants and friends. Basically, everyone is in love but no one is allowed to publicly be in love with who they actually love. The Holland family is facing financial problems that are threatening to ruin them and their reputation - and in this time period of 1899, reputation is everything. Henry proposes to her because he needs his family to stay in the city's good graces; Elizabeth accepts because her family desperately needs money. As a result, Will leaves the Holland family to seek a fortune in California, telling Elizabeth to join him if she truly loves him. Penelope begins to develop a plan to get rid of Elizabeth so she can marry Henry. Diana doesn't know about Penelope's love for Henry, so she does her best to get Henry for herself. I guess that the entire book is a long, rather complicated love story.

I liked it.

I'm not usually one for love stories, but I liked these characters. I love the use of location in this book and I loved how descriptive it was. I had no problems imagining what the Hollands' dresses looked like or how Penelope's mansion looked.The chapters rotate points of view between the main characters, which I liked. It was interesting to see how the different characters reacted differently to everything that happened. Something I really didn't like was that the flow of the book got confusing at some times. On occasion, a character would say something and then immediately Godberson would spend a couple of paragraphs explaining scenery or an event or something and only then would the other character respond. In some parts, it read very much like a first novel, which it is. I can only hope that Godberson's writing improves over the next three books.

I'd give this book a 4/5. It was very good, but seemed at some time to be filled up with fluff.

Buy this book on Amazon ***** Visit Anna Godberson's website