Glamourous Notions

by Megan Chance

I loved this story of old Hollywood and its glamorous clothing, movie stars, parties and gossip columnists who will do anything to get a story. It is also an unputdownable story of reinvention, friendship, betrayal and stolen identity with twists I didn’t see coming.

In 1955, Elsie Gruner is desperate to escape Ohio and her father’s pig farm. When she meets a man who says that he will take her to Hollywood because he is going to be a star, she marries him only to find out when they reach Hollywood that he is a loser and will never be a star. Elsie’s mother is a dressmaker and Elsie is a talented dress designer and she wants to design dresses for the movies. When she wins a prestigious scholarship to an art academy in Rome, she dumps her husband and doesn’t look back.

When she arrives in Rome she meets the enigmatic Julia who introduces her to smoky jazz clubs and people completely different from anyone she has ever met. Julia convinces Elsie to reinvent herself by updating her style and changing her name to Lena Taylor. When Julia asks Lena to pick up packages from around Rome and deliver them, naive Lena doesn’t stop to ask why. When things go wrong in Rome, Lena ends up back in Hollywood where she talks her way into a seamstress job for Lux Movie Studio. Soon she becomes the seanstree to the stars and the lead designer for Lux. But things are changing in the world and in the film industry. The House Un-American Activities Committee is on the search for communist sympathizers, homosexuals and anything unamerican in movies. A censor is on the lot during filming to make sure that the costumes are appropriate and that there are no communist influences on the movies. Scripts are constantly having to be re-written and finished costumes re-done. Tensions are high and gossip is rampant. Lena has her own secrets that she must keep hidden but it is getting harder to do that when her past comes crashing back on her.

Glamourous Notions will be published on February 1st. Thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy.