Weekend Review: The Roaring Days of Zora Lily

 

The Roaring Days of Zora Lily / Noelle Salazar
TO: Mira, c2023.
416 p.

This novel starts out at a contemporary museum, where a curator putting together a retrospective of 100 years of movie costumes uncovers the name Zora Lily under the tag of a dress she's mounting. But who is Zora Lily? Nobody seems to know. 

The book then moves back to Zora's storyline, and only returns to the museum at the very end of the book. So it's not a traditional dual timeline novel, rather, it's more of a framing device. Zora's story is the heart of it. 

Zora lives in Seattle in the 20s. She's the eldest daughter in a large-ish family; her mother is a seamstress and Zora helps with the mending and fitting and stitching. But she has a special skill, and she dreams of becoming another Chanel or Lanvin. 

Her life is very eventful. The chapters have her fortunes rising and falling, finding a good position and losing it, having the chance to go to Hollywood to design but returning home before too long, encountering a rich businessman who everyone wants and having him fall for her instantly despite their class differences, then having certain things come between them... if there is something that can happen to her, it will. 

Early in the story, Zora's adventurous friend takes them 'downtown' to a speakeasy, where her friend dances in a revue. Zora helps keep their costumes in order, and from there just keeps sewing her way into Hollywood. I loved the descriptions of the clothes that Zora sews and repairs, the sewing machine she eventually receives, her time in Hollywood in the unsatisfying studio system, and the direction she takes when she returns to Seattle. All the sewing and designing and clothing bits were engaging and a delight to imagine. 

Overall, however, I found the story quite plodding despite all the eventful ups and downs of Zora's life. Her romance was treacly, many of her misfortunes could have been avoided, and her personality seemed dull in comparison to her ambitious and energetic best friend. Also, the writing style didn't catch me, with the wrong word for something being used a few times, and the inclusion of 20s slang like 'gams' thrown in as something Zora says. This doesn't fit her at all. While people might have been using those expressions, the innocent Zora seems unlikely to be throwing them around. 

So, this was just okay for me. I'm not the best target market for these kind of historical sagas anyhow, but will give them a try just for the sewing content, and this one delivered in that area! I just found the story stretched the suspension of disbelief a little too far, for me. 

Literary Sewing Circle: Bellewether

Spring is here, and so is a new Literary Sewing Circle title! I'm happy to announce that our group read for this round of the Literary Sewing Circle is

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley 

Summary:

Some houses seem to want to hold their secrets.

It’s 1759 and the world is at war, pulling the North American colonies of Britain and France into the conflict. The times are complicated, as are the loyalties of many New York merchants who have secretly been trading with the French for years, defying Britain’s colonial laws in a game growing ever more treacherous.

When captured French officers are brought to Long Island to be billeted in private homes on their parole of honour, it upends the lives of the Wilde family—deeply involved in the treasonous trade and already divided by war.

Lydia Wilde, struggling to keep the peace in her fracturing family following her mother’s death, has little time or kindness to spare for her unwanted guests. And Canadian lieutenant Jean-Philippe de Sabran has little desire to be there. But by the war’s end they’ll both learn love, honour, and duty can form tangled bonds that are not broken easily.

Their doomed romance becomes a local legend, told and re-told through the years until the present day, when conflict of a different kind brings Charley Van Hoek to Long Island to be the new curator of the Wilde House Museum.

Charley doesn’t believe in ghosts. But as she starts to delve into the history of Lydia and her French officer, it becomes clear that the Wilde House holds more than just secrets, and Charley discovers the legend might not have been telling the whole story...or the whole truth.

(via publisher) 


About Susanna:

© Jacques du Toit

Susanna Kearsley is a New York Times, USA TODAY, and Globe and Mail bestselling author and former museum curator who loves restoring the lost voices of real people to the page, interweaving historical intrigue with modern suspense. Her books, published in translation in more than twenty countries, have won the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize, RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, a RITA Award, and National Readers’ Choice Awards, and have finaled for the UK’s Romantic Novel of the Year and the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. She lives near Toronto. Visit her at SusannaKearsley.com or follow her on Twitter @SusannaKearsley.  


(via publisher)



This book is available for purchase in both hard copy and ebook formats, as well as in audiobook format.

You can find many formats at all of these locations:

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Book Depository

Chapters Indigo

Powell's

Barnes and Noble

IndieBound

ABE Books

Biblio.com

Or, of course, check your local library!

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How does the Literary Sewing Circle work? We read a book together, discuss it, and then make something inspired by our reading. As long as you can point out what inspired you from your reading, even if just a sentence, you can share your makes in our final roundup!

Anyone can join, and you can sew, knit, quilt or embroider - any textile art that you like doing - to participate. This is a reading/sewing circle, very low-key; no competitions here, just reading and sewing for fun. Although we are very lucky to have special sponsors this time around -- two of the finished projects will be chosen at random to each receive one of the free pattern offerings. Just finish and post your project by the end of the linkup and you will have a chance to win.

There is no official sign-up to worry about; just start reading along if you wish, and leave your thoughts on the book or your project on any of the Literary Sewing Circle posts. We do have a dedicated book discussion post halfway through and again at the end, but leave your thoughts anytime. And when the final post goes up, so does the project linkup -- you can leave a link to your finished project there, whether it is on your blog, a pattern site, or even Instagram. It's easy :)

So, join in, and share!

Literary Sewing Circle Schedule


Mar 6 - Announcement & Introduction
Mar 13 - Inspiration post & featured sponsors
Mar 20 - Author feature
Mar 27 - Halfway mark: book talk
April 3 - Inspiration post
April 10 - Final Post: book discussion wrap up & posting of project linkup


(The project linkup will be live until May 1 - three more weeks - so you have enough time to get your project posted)



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And now for our sponsors!

Because this book involves so much Quebec content, we have two wonderful sponsors, both based in Quebec.

Jalie Patterns is based in Quebec City, and they are offering one free PDF pattern to a participant.

Closet Case Patterns is based in Montreal, and they are offering a $25 credit to their online shop to a participant.

Winners will be selected by random draw on May 2, once all projects are linked up. This is more of a friendly sewalong than a competition, so all prizes are chosen via random number generator. If you participate and link up your project, you have a chance to win one of these generous sponsor prizes.
Thank you to our sponsors!