Fiona Davis Launches First Novel, THE DOLLHOUSE

THE DOLLHOUSE tells the dual storylines of two women who, decades apart, are enthralled by the allure of the real-life Barbizon Hotel for Women, which, from 1927 to 1981, was an exclusive residence for young, single women who wanted to make it in the big city, including Liza Minelli, Grace Kelly, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, and Sylvia Plath.

When Davis walked through the doors of the Barbizon 63 a few years ago, she was struck by the history of the building and conceived of a novel: partially set in the Barbizon of 1952, and partially in the condos of today. When Darby McLaughlin arrives at the Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, she is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren't: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn't belong. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she's introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that's used there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance.

Over half a century later, the Barbizon's gone condo and most of its long-ago guests are forgotten. But rumors of Darby's involvement in a deadly skirmish with a hotel maid back in 1952 haunt the halls of the building as surely as the melancholy music that floats from the elderly woman's rent-controlled apartment. It's a combination too intoxicating for journalist Rose Lewin, Darby's upstairs neighbor, to resist-not to mention the perfect distraction from her own imploding personal life. Yet as Rose's obsession deepens, the ethics of her investigation become increasingly murky, and neither woman will remain unchanged when the shocking truth is finally revealed.