This was one hell of an enjoyable read! Lots of thanks to the several Cannonballers who raved about it. The Girls at the Kingfisher Club is based on The Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale which I LOVED as a kid. Did anyone ever see that tv adaptation with Lesley Ann Warren? We had it recorded on VHS and I probably wore it out with my constant rewatches. Not sure if it’d hold up years later, but this book set in the roaring twenties was the perfect adult version.
Jo, aka The General, is basically a stand-in mother to her eleven younger sisters. Their distant father basically kept them locked away from the public because he’s so ashamed at not having a male heir, but now that they’re older and becoming more of a nuisance to him, he’s determined to marry them all off quietly. What he doesn’t know is that they’ve been sneaking off for years to go dance in the glamorous speakeasies of New York City and they aren’t about to let him shoehorn them into awful marriages, especially since some of the sisters are still in their young teens.
This was just such a magical book. I know I’ll be picking this one back up when things get stressful and I need to escape. Valentine’s writing was lovely, very subtly elegant, and it suited the story perfectly. She twisted the original story in all the right places to make the tale more modern. It must have been extremely difficult making sure all the sisters had distinct personalities. Having so many characters with the same passion for dancing could have gotten very confusing, but Valentine pulled it off with aplomb. Highly recommend for everyone, but especially readers who love historical fiction, clever romances, and strong female characters.
