White, K.,
Williams, B., & Willig, L. (2016). The
forgotten room. New York City: New American
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| Photo taken by me. |
Summary:
Three generations of women across the time periods are
brought together by one Gilded Age mansion in NYC: Dr. Kate Schuyler during
World War II; Lucy Young, a secretary during the Jazz Age; and Olive Van Alen,
a maid during the Gilded Age.
Olive moves in to the Pratt Mansion in 1892 to work as a
maid in the house that her father, an architect, designed. There, she meets and
falls in love with Harry Pratt, a hobbyist painter. He is taken by her singular
beauty and paints her in his studio, a little attic room at the top of the
Pratt Mansion. He even paints her Kate-and-Leo style: nude with only a ruby
necklace. Because of the difference in their stations, their two-week romance
is illicit. Why, though, if their love was based on such a special connection,
did Olive steal away in the dawn light of New Year’s Day?
Lucy Young, the daughter of Olive and Hans Jungmann (yes,
that Olive), moves into the Pratt Mansion that has been remodeled as a boarding
home for respectable young, working ladies and renamed Stornaway House. Lucy
makes the change in residence because she has gotten a new job as the secretary
of a law firm where Philip Schuyler, the stepson of Prunella, Harry Pratt’s
sister, works, who takes care of the Pratt trust. Lucy has some questions that her
grandmother bared to her at her father’s funeral: is Hans really her father?
Who was this “Harry” that Olive whispers on her deathbed? And from where did
this ruby necklace originate that Olive shoved into Lucy’s hands on said
deathbed? But Lucy gets swirled up in two romances: with her boss Philip
Schuyler and the client John Ravenel, who owns an art gallery in South Carolina
and is in NYC at Philip’s law firm asking his own questions. Together, John and
Lucy find a secret stash of letters in the forgotten room of Stornaway House.
Kate Schuyler, the daughter of Lucy and Philip (yes, that
Lucy and that Philip) works in Stornaway Hospital, formerly the Pratt Mansion,
that has now been outfitted as a hospital for soldiers returned from Europe.
One night, a man --Captain Cooper Ravenel-- comes in with a horrendous leg
wound. He begs Kate to not amputate it. Kate relents and, taken by his plea,
offers the room she’s been living in at the very top of Stornaway Hospital as
every other bed is taken. Kate nurses him back to health and works to keep her
feelings for him at bay, but they can’t deny the connection --or their
curiosity as they discover paintings that seem to be of the same style as
Cooper’s grandfather, Augustus Ravenel. Why are Augustus Ravenel’s paintings
here in a forgotten room in NYC when he’s only lived in South Carolina and Cuba
as far as Cooper knows? Why does Kate have the same ruby necklace that the
woman in the painting wears that was passed from Cooper’s grandfather to his
father to Cooper? Will Kate and Cooper make the same mistakes their
grandparents and their parents did in denying their love for one another?
As a Genre Example:
According to the definition in Saricks textbook, The Forgotten Room is a Historical
Fiction novel because it takes place in a time period before the authors’
lives. There is decent world building for each time period: WWII, Jazz Age, and
the Gilded Age. The mood is more pleasant than threatening or gritty, so more
indicative of Romance than Mystery thanks to witty banter and smart dialogue.
Kate’s storyline is directly tied to WWII while Lucy and Olive’s stories are
less reliant on the specifics of the Jazz Age and Gilded Age. Readers don’t
meet any real people in the story, but the Pratt Mansion is based on a real
house on East 69th Street in NYC (Lamb, 2016). The pacing is
definitely unhurried. I didn’t notice that so much the first time I read The Forgotten Room, but this time I did
since I could remember some of what unfolds.
Evaluation:
 |
| Photo taken by me. |
Lauren Willig is one of my favorite authors, so when I
saw The Forgotten Room, I knew I had
to read it! I enjoyed the blending of mystery, romance, and historical fiction
very much. Additionally, I had a fun time mapping (see to the right) out the different clues as the reader is introduced to them. Like Willig’s
other novels, there is witty banter, smart characters, intrigue, and romance.
This was my second time reading, and I’ve enjoyed recommending it to people
since I first read it about a year ago. Since then, it won a Lariat Award, so
it’s an often-recommended book at my library right now.
The Forgotten Room
is a great combination of Romance, Mystery, and Historical Fiction, so readers
of those genres will like it, as well fans of Family Sagas and Women’s Lives
since it features three women of different generations and how they are all
connected. And because it is a collaborative novel by Karen White, Beatriz
Williams, and Lauren Willig, it is an obvious read-alike for fans of any of the
authors. In fact, there are quite a few allusions to a family from Beatriz
Williams’s Family Saga centered on the Schuylers.
Resources
Lamb, J. (2016,
January 19). A conversation with ‘The Forgotten Room’ authors Karen White,
Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig. Retrieved from http://happyeverafter.usatoday.com/2016/01/19/karen-white-beatriz-williams-lauren-willig-forgotten-room/
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