Ellen Cooney is a local author--her books are set in Boston or Eastern Massachusetts. I love place as a character, and selfishly, I love reading about Boston. Cooney's A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies is set in the early 20th century, and details the goings-on of a Beacon Hill brothel (for women!).

Red-headed Charlotte married into a rich New England family and succumbed to a mysterious malaise that kept her bedridden for years. Stepping out one winter day, she catches her husband passionately embracing another woman, and without a word, she rides off to Boston. She is saved only by a series of potential improbably coincidences--at every turn, she runs into someone who knows her, owes her, or wants her. She ends up at The Beechmont: A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies and discovers her true self.

At moments wildly fun, others very predictable. I was underwhelmed by the ending.