Hi yes. so excited that NetGalley approved me for this ARC.
that is all...

oh how the mighty have fallen....

Set in Chicago in a dual timeline we follow Honoree Delacour in the 1920's jazz age, and Sawyer Hayes in 2015 working on his thesis on the 20's jazz age after suffering the loss of his sister. Sawyer finds a connection to Honoree and his thesis and through his grandma's connections to her is able to meet with her to discuss her time with a notable filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.

On paper this had everything I wanted in a novel, Speakeasies, mystery, 1920's....
but something about it never clicked for me. The voices in each narrative were distinct and different which is good in theory. I never got lost in whose voice I was reading, but the dramatically different tone of them made me frequently feel like I was reading two different stories.

The Mystery also sounded promising but I felt it lost steam fairly quickly. It gets set up well and very dramatically and then it is mostly a non-issue for most of the novel. yes the characters think about it but there is not real pressure on the plot from it.

The 'big reveal' wasn't shocking (though.... to its credit I dont know that it was meant to be. This wasn't sold as a thriller with big surprises so its entirely possible that it being so easily guessed was intentional) and largely made me wonder what the point of the story actually was.

What I think were independently two great stories of Honoree's life in the 1920's, and Sawyer overcoming his grief and moving forward with this life, were bogged died by trying to tell one cohesive story. I wanted a lot more of Sawyer's grief and trauma and never got it because we were only got his story as it related to Honoree's.... he was largely a vessel to hear her story which made it feel mostly unimportant.

Overall I do think Bryce is a talented writer, and has amazing ideas but this story didn't work for me

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review