In this captivating novel, New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis takes readers into the glamorous lost art school within Grand Central Terminal, where two very different women, fifty years apart, strive to make their mark on a world set against them. For most New Yorkers, Grand Central Terminal is a crown jewel, a masterpiece of design. But for Clara Darden and Virginia Clay, it … Virginia Clay, it represents something quite different.
For Clara, the terminal is the stepping stone to her future. It is 1928, and Clara is teaching at the lauded Grand Central School of Art. Though not even the prestige of the school can override the public’s disdain for a “woman artist,” fiery Clara is single-minded in her quest to achieve every creative success—even while juggling the affections of two very different men. But she and her bohemian friends have no idea that they’ll soon be blindsided by the looming Great Depression…and that even poverty and hunger will do little to prepare Clara for the greater tragedy yet to come.
By 1974, the terminal has declined almost as sharply as Virginia Clay’s life. Dilapidated and dangerous, Grand Central is at the center of a fierce lawsuit: Is the once-grand building a landmark to be preserved, or a cancer to be demolished? For Virginia, it is simply her last resort. Recently divorced, she has just accepted a job in the information booth in order to support herself and her college-age daughter, Ruby. But when Virginia stumbles upon an abandoned art school within the terminal and discovers a striking watercolor, her eyes are opened to the elegance beneath the decay. She embarks on a quest to find the artist of the unsigned masterpiece—an impassioned chase that draws Virginia not only into the battle to save Grand Central but deep into the mystery of Clara Darden, the famed 1920s illustrator who disappeared from history in 1931.
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Fiona Davis became a bestseller for her absolute intricate detail and her ability to bring a reader from their own living room into a world filled with color, drama, mystery and emotion. Now, coming in August, she has done it yet again and Jackie Kennedy would be proud. You’ll soon see why.
We take a journey with two women, fifty years apart: Clara Darden and Virginia Clay. Clara is 25 years of age and living in 1928. She’s an illustrator teaching at the well-renowned Grand Central School of Art, and her dream is to illustrate cover art for the upscale magazine, Vogue. During this age, female artists are frowned upon, but Clara isn’t about to play a role that men want her to play. Brilliant and determined to succeed in a man’s world, Clara is keeping her eye on what she wants. What’s not expected is the negative power that the Great Depression will unleash very soon.
Virginia Clay is struggling in 1974. Divorced, attempting to help her daughter, she works in the information booth at the terminal. What was once a “grand” Grand Central, is now a disgusting place that’s home to people who like to deal drugs and commit crime. There is a battle happening between those who wish to knock down the place and those who wish to work their tails off to restore it. Luck (or, perhaps, a Divine power) intervenes when Virginia finds an abandoned art school inside the building and realizes there is true beauty underneath those dirty walls. Her journey is all about unearthing the past now which will involve finding a woman by the name of Clara who hasn’t been seen for decades.
Fiona Davis, this is one reader who bows down to you. An incredible story. Historically stunning, with characters that you will never forget. Those that have been touted as “must reads,” this one outshines many of them.
How could I not adore a book set in New York City, my favorite city in the world? A soaringly smart page-turner about art, history, memory, and how two blazingly unique women, separated and yet bound together by different decades, struggle to find their place and make their world their own. Magnificent.