Jeanne Mackin – лучшие книги

Paris, 1938. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli are fighting for recognition as the most successful and influential fashion designer in France, and their rivalry is already legendary. They oppose each other at every turn, in both their politics and their designs: Chanel’s are classic, elegant, and practical; Schiaparelli’s bold, experimental, and surreal.When Lily Sutter, a recently widowed young American teacher, visits her brother, Charlie, in Paris, he insists on buying her a couture dress—a Chanel. Lily, however, prefers a Schiaparelli. Charlie’s beautiful and socially prominent girlfriend soon begins wearing Schiaparelli’s designs as well, and much of Paris follows in her footsteps. Schiaparelli offers budding artist Lily a job at her store, and Lily finds herself increasingly involved with Schiaparelli and Chanel’s personal war. Their fierce competition reaches new and dangerous heights as the Nazis and the looming threat of World War II bear down on Paris.
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Louisa is skeptical when her dear friend Sylvia Shattuck expresses a desire to contact her long-dead father through a medium. But she puts her doubts aside to accompany Sylvia to a seance at the home of Boston's most famous crystal gazer. On their second visit they find the medium murdered, and what began as an idle curiosity becomes a compelling investigation. It seems that to solve the mystery of the medium's death, Louisa must first uncover the surprising truth about her life.

Gentle Reader,

In 1855, even though I was still the unknown "Louy" Alcott, I had started to reap some of the rewards of my labors. Under a pen name, I had sold a couple of my "blood and thunder" romance stories and a collection of children's fables, but Little Women was just the germ of an idea. I wish I could have said that much for murder ...

After a bleak winter in Boston investigating the murder of a close friend, I was badly in need of wholesome air and sunshine. To that end, my family --- mother Abba, father Bronson, and my sisters, Lizzie, May, and Anna, and I --- visited our cousins in Walpole, New Hampshire. But as soon as we arrived in the peaceful hamlet, we were confronted with tragedy: the death of Ernst Nooteboom, who purportedly fell into a ravine while hiking.

While his sister pointed her finger at the grocery store owner who coveted Ernst's land, I found no lack of other suspects with sinister motives. Despairing of the death of such a young man, I resolved to bring Ernst's murderer to justice.

In this delightful new "tale of dark secrets, mysterious men, and heiresses in distress,"* Louisa May Alcott, the beloved author of Little Women, is cast in the role of amateur sleuth-investigating crimes more heinous than anything she can imagine in her "blood and thunder" romances.