Rumors: The Luxe Novels, #2 -- Anna Godbersen
A description of Rumors necessitates spoilers from The Luxe, so beware...
Mid-December, 1899. Manhattan. Rumors continue to swirl about Elizabeth Holland's mysterious death. First and foremost, is she even dead? After all, a body was never recovered. Only her sister, Diana, and her social rival and "friend" Penelope Hayes, know the truth: Elizabeth is alive. She staged a drowning to avoid marrying Henry Schoonmaker and ran away to California to search for her true love, the Hollands' former coachman, Will Keller.
Now, though, blissfully happy and sun-browned (and soon-to-be-rich due to an oil strike) Elizabeth and Will are headed back to New York due to an alarming letter from Diana...
As with The Luxe, there's not a whole lot to say -- the characters haven't gotten any more developed and the real pleasure in reading comes from the amazing soap-opera-i-ness of it all. (Well, that and imagining the clothes...)
At the three-quarter mark, I had decided I was done with the series -- Penelope has so much potential for divine cattiness, but as all of her attention is on Henry (who has absolutely no attention for her...), she's become, well, boring. I love Isaac Phillips Buck (who I can't help imagining as a younger version of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie Miles), but he is still relegated to sidekick status. And while I was somewhat invested in the Henry and Diana romance, it wasn't enough to make me want to read another 450 pages.
But then came the Big Finale... and now I'm dying to know what will happen next. (It's rather like watching Days of our Lives on a Friday -- all week long, you tell yourself, "Oh, this is so STUPID! I'm going to quit." And then they hit you with a cliffhanger... AUUUUUGH!)
Recommended to fans of the Rich Girl genre and to those who like their soaps in book format.
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Previously: