Book: The Address

 Book: The Address

Author: Fiona Davis

Pages: 368

This is my 229th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand NY apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddently awash in possibility - n0 mean feat for a servant in 1884.  The opportunity to move to America.  The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota.  And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else - and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.  100 years later, Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities: Fresh out of rehab, the former interior designer is homeless, jobless, and penniless.  Bailey's grandfather was the ward of famed architect Theodore Camden, yet Bailey won't see a dime of the Camden family's substantial estate; instead, her "cousin" Melinda - Camden's biological great-granddaughter - will inherit almost everything.  So when Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation of her lavish Dakota apartment, Bailey jumps at the chance, despite her dislike of Melinda's vision.  The renovation will take away all the character of the apartment Theodore Camden himself lived in -and died in, after suffering multiple stab wounds by a former Dakota employee who had previously spent 7 months in an insane asylum -a madwoman named Sara Smythe.  A century apart, Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle against the golden excess of their respective ages - for Sara, the opulence of a world ruled by the Astors and Vanderbilts; for Bailey the nightlife's free-flowing drinks and cocaine - and take refuge in the Upper West Side's gilded fortress.  But a building with a history as rich, and often as tragic, as the Dakota's can't hold its secrets forever, and what Bailey discovers inside could turn everything she thought she knew about Theodore Camden - and the woman who killed him - on its head.

I have read several of Fiona Davis' books and usually deliver it, but this one missed the mark for me.  I didn't really care for many of the characters, and it was easy to figure out the big secret.  I liked the story - she always uses true to life circumstances to build her historical fiction, and I do like the dual time line of her books.  This one just wasn't as good as some of her others.

Stars: 3