📘 The Wicked City
by Beatriz Williams
Genre Fiction ◦ Historical
Format & Source Print ◦ For review, TLC Tours
Publication William Morrow ◦ 2017
Rating ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
📝 My Review
What a fun adventure ride through New York City, journeying through both modern times and the 1920s!
In Wicked City, we meet Gin Kelly, a fabulous, fun, and feisty flapper living in the prohibition era. She is an independent young woman and a bit of a smart-alec to boot, who manages to find herself in some trouble as well as some romantic entanglements. At the beginning of her story, we find her caught up in a raid at a hidden speakeasy that gets busted by a Prohibition enforcement agent.
In an alternating modern-day narrative, we also meet Ella who happens to move into the same building that housed said speakeasy after leaving her cheating husband in a hurry. She starts hearing noise, jazz music, and laughter coming out of the basement but doesn’t quite know why…
So much happens in these stories that it’d be hard to get TOO much into the intricacies here, but I thoroughly enjoyed both story lines and how they tied together. Both characters were strong and brilliant, and I particularly enjoyed Gin and her mouth! What an entertaining and sassy character.
As I’ve stated before, I’ve never been much for history, but lately I’ve been giving historical fiction a shot and have found myself really enjoying it. This is absolutely the case here too – I loved being wrapped up in the 1920s while reading and being taken back in time. The dialogue was spot on for that era and I really learned a lot too. Williams has a way with words that really draws you in and I found myself completely transported, wishing life today was a bit more like it was in the 20s. I also was sucked straight into that NYC setting too, as always — I’ve loved the city since my first visit at 16 and have longed, at many times, to live there myself.
If you enjoy history, strong female leads, and plain old fun reads, pick this one up! I’m actually “book-talking” this one and a few others at a senior living center this week because I think the residents will really enjoy it. I get to do cool things like that as a librarian, see?
This was my first Beatriz Williams novel, but it won’t be my last! I can’t wait to be transported back in time again.
“How terrible a time is the beginning of March. In a month there will be daffodils and the sudden blossoming of orchards, but you wouldn't know it now. You have to take spring on blind faith.”
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