THE IT GIRLS
by Karen Harper
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GENRE: Historical Fiction
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BLURB:
They
rose from genteel poverty, two beautiful sisters, ambitious, witty, seductive.
Elinor and Lucy Sutherland are at once each other’s fiercest supporters and
most vicious critics.
Lucy
transformed herself into Lucile, the daring fashion designer who revolutionized
the industry with her flirtatious gowns and brazen self-promotion. And when she
married Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon her life seemed to be a fairy tale. But success
came at many costs-to her marriage and to her children…and then came the
fateful night of April 14, 1912 and the scandal that followed.
Elinor’s
novels titillate readers, and it’s even asked in polite drawing rooms if you
would like to “sin with Elinor Glyn?” Her work pushes the boundaries of what’s
acceptable; her foray into the glittering new world of Hollywood turns her into
a world-wide phenomenon. But although she writes of passion, the true love she
longs for eludes her.
But
despite quarrels and misunderstandings, distance and destiny, there is no bond
stronger than that of the two sisters-confidants, friends, rivals and the two
“It Girls” of their day.
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EXCERPT from an article
written by the author about The It Girls
THE AMAZING SUTHERLAND SISTERS
In the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras, two very
different British sisters overcame poverty and obscurity to carve pioneering
paths through the restrictive rules and rigid regulations of society. Both worked their way to fame and fortune in
an age in which being divorced, going into trade on one’s own, especially for
women with strict upbringing and some aristocratic ties, was strictly
taboo. I was thrilled to find such
amazing women and make them my heroines in The It Girls.
Both Lucile and Elinor Sutherland were career women in an
age in which the only proper career was marriage and motherhood. When the eras they knew best were over, they
shifted gears and sped into the Roaring 20s.
Elinor eventually wrote for the silent movies in Hollywood and hobnobbed
with early film stars. After an
international fashion career, Lucile designed for the common woman in the Sears
Catalogue. Yet these sisters, reared in
the wilds of Canada and then on the backwater Isle of Jersey, were not common
for their time.
Lucile Sutherland, later Lady Duff-Gordon, (1862 – 1934,)
was rebellious, charming, determined and outgoing. When her husband deserted her and her
daughter to run off with a “pantomime girl,” Lucile began to design, cut and
sew fabulous fashions on her dining room table.
She forged a path for women designers, which was then strictly the realm
of men. She dressed the rich, famous and
royal and fought for innovative changes.
In her 1932 autobiography Discretions and Indiscretions,
Lucile relates an incident when she was fitting a gown in her shop for Mary,
Duchess of York, wife of George, Duke of York, later King George V. Lucile spilled pins all over the floor, and
the duke knelt in front of her to help pick them up. Ah, a future king kneeling before her!
Lucile forged the way to get women out of corsets and boldly
put side slits in long skirts so women would not have to take little
steps. She certainly was taking big
ones! She was one of the first to design
silky, lacy lingerie instead of stiff linen or cotton pantaloons and
petticoats. She weathered the “immoral
woman” accusations (mostly from “moral” married men) because woman dared to
love her light-weight, fancy but racy designs.
Lucile first used fashion shows with live
“mannequins”/models, rather than showing her costumes on stuffed, faceless
dummies. She personally recruited tall,
slender woman, even raiding salesgirls from Harrod’s. She called these women her ‘goddesses,’ gave
them romantic names and taught them social graces.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
New
York Times and USA Today bestselling author Karen Harper is a former university
(Ohio State) and high school English teacher. Published since 1982, she writes
contemporary suspense and historical novels about real British women. She is
the author of The Royal Nanny, and several Tudor era books that have been
bestsellers in the UK and Russia. A rabid Anglophile, she likes nothing more
than to research her novels on site in the British Isles. Harper won the Mary
Higgins Clark Award for Dark Angel, and her novel Shattered Secrets was judged
one of the Best Books of 2014 by Suspense Magazine. The author and her husband
live in Ohio and love to travel.
For
more information please visit:
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GIVEAWAY
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Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to read more about Elinor Glyn!
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