Magnolia Palace, The: A Novel

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The colliding narratives and comprehensive descriptions of the historic mansion make for Davis’s best work to date. Davis does an excellent job in describing the Fricks' style of living: the clothes, the food, the music, and the classes - as well as the art, of course.

The fallout from the crisis will reverberate through the decades until Veronica reveals her secret and discovers others hidden by the family. Similar to The Lions of Fifth Avenue (although a much better storyline), this book also takes place in an iconic New York building, the Frick Museum, and weaves a brilliant web of fictional characters and historical characters with a dual timeline. Fiona Davis has written another fascinating dual time masterpiece, thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Publishing for my copy in exchange for an honest review and five big stars from me. As she ran for her life, Angelica happened to stumble upon an employment opportunity at the Frick Mansion. Another policeman stepped to the door to shut it, but not before Lillian caught sight of a woman's bloody hand, the fingers gently, almost daintily, curled in.

While the Frick family seemed to have it all, the unveiling of secrets and schemes within their house was interesting.

During the scavenger hunt, the clues send us to different paintings and art objects within the museum.

But the longer she works as a private secretary to the imperious and demanding Helen Frick, the daughter and heiress of industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick, the more deeply her life gets intertwined with that of the family - pulling her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels, and family drama that runs so deep, the stakes just may be life or death.

But when she—along with a charming intern/budding art curator named Joshua—is dismissed from the Vogue shoot taking place at the Frick Collection, she chances upon a series of hidden messages in the museum: messages that will lead her and Joshua on a hunt that could not only solve Veronica’s financial woes, but could finally reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder in the infamous Frick family. On the bright side, the Watkins couple had shouted each other to pieces in a terrible fight earlier that morning, the screeching carrying on for a good forty-five minutes before silence finally reigned. She also jumps skillfully between the Roaring Twenties and the Swinging Sixties as another model explores the Frick Collection decades later.

Would they be able to unravel the truth to what really happened at the Frick mansion all those years ago? This works out well for her since she needs to keep a low profile due to being a murder suspect, which is another misunderstanding. Once she is listed as a person of interest in the murder of her landlord’s wife, she goes on the lam, and inadvertently finds herself interviewing for a position as the personal secretary to Helen Frick. In ill health, he is compelled to see his daughter quickly married, offering Lillian a large sum of money if she can pull it off.

It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. The author sets it up for the story of the past to unfold in the future as characters find clue after clue, trying to determine who those people were in the past and how and why they disappeared.

Curious about the decades old murder, they uncover hidden messages in the walls much like a scavenger hunt revealing more than expected, but they are not alone in the dark. As with all Davis books, they center around a New York City landmark, that I usually know nothing to very little about, and this particular book surrounds The Frick Museum and the life of Helen Clay Frick, a woman whom I had not heard of 72 hours ago, but I wish to learn more about fiercely, because in this novel that woman is a true spitfire, and I just completely fell in love with the way Fiona wrote her. The super of her apartment building was making inappropriate advances toward her that she had was trying to ignore. I thought that she had outdone herself with the master level she reached with The Lions of Fifth Avenue; but she has managed to pull me in once again and just impress me with page after page. Davis smoothly combines fact with fiction, and offers beautiful descriptions of the family’s art collection.