Renée Rosen
Renee is the USA Today bestselling author of 8 historical fiction including: FIFTH AVENUE GLAMOUR GIRL and THE SOCIAL GRACES,Her new novel, LET'S CALL HER BARBIE, about the Barbie doll creators Ruth Handler and Jack Ryan will be published January 21,2025 by Penguin Random House / Berkley. Most people discover their love of reading first and then decide to try writing. For Renee Rosen, it was just the opposite. From the time she was a little girl she knew she wanted to be a writer and by age seventeen had completed her first novel, with what she admits was the worst opening line of all time. Her hopes of being the youngest published author on record were soon dashed when her “masterpiece” was repeatedly rejected. Several years and many attempts later, Renee finally became a reader first. Since then she has been fortunate enough to study the craft of writing from such esteemed novelists as Michael Cunningham, Susan Minot and Carol Anshaw. Renee now lives in Chicago where she is working on a new novel. You can find her online at https://www.facebook.com/ReneeRosenAu..., https://twitter.com/ReneeRosen1 or visit her website at www.reneerosen.com Praise for DOLLFACE"DOLLFACE is as intoxicating as the forbidden liquor at the heart of it. Rosen's Chicago gangsters are vividly rendered, and the gun molls stir up at least as much trouble as their infamous men. Fans of Boardwalk Empire will love DOLLFACE. I know I did." Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS Advanced Praise for WHAT THE LADY WANTS (coming November 4, 2014) "WHAT THE LADY WANTS is as fun and addictive and Chicago-licious as a box of Marshall Field's Frango Mints. And, sadly, you'll finish it almost as fast. A delight.” Rebecca Makkai, author of The Borrower and The Hundred Year House Awards for EVERY CROOKED POT2010 Popular Book for Young Adults by YALSA 2007 Booklist Editor’s Pick Starred Reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal
The Social Graces
Renée Rosen
The author of Park Avenue Summer throws back the curtain on one of the most remarkable feuds in history: Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Astor's notorious battle for control of New York society during the Gilded Age.
In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, where wives turn a blind eye to husbands' infidelities, and women have few rights and even less independence, society is everything. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor—the Mrs. Astor.
But times are changing.
Alva Vanderbilt has recently married into one of America's richest families. But what good is money when society refuses to acknowledge you? Alva, who knows what it is to have nothing, will do whatever it takes to have everything.
Sweeping three decades and based on true events, this is a gripping novel about two fascinating, complicated women going head to head, behaving badly, and discovering what’s truly at stake.
Park Avenue Summer
Renée Rosen
Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada as Renée Rosen draws readers into the glamour of 1965 New York City and Cosmopolitan Magazine, where a brazen new Editor-in-Chief--Helen Gurley Brown--shocks America by daring to talk to women about all things off limits...
New York City is filled with opportunities for single girls like Alice Weiss who leaves her small Midwestern town to chase her big city dreams and unexpectedly lands the job of a lifetime working for Helen Gurley Brown, the first female Editor-in-Chief of a then failing Cosmopolitan Magazine.
Nothing could have prepared Alice for the world she enters as editors and writers resign on the spot, refusing to work for the woman who wrote the scandalous bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl. While confidential memos, article ideas, and cover designs keep finding their way into the wrong hands, someone tries to pull Alice into this scheme to sabotage her boss. But Alice remains loyal and becomes all the more determined to help Helen succeed. As pressure mounts at the magazine and Alice struggles to make her way in New York, she quickly learns that in Helen Gurley Brown's world, a woman can demand to have it all.
Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl
Renée Rosen
It’s 1938, and a young woman selling face cream out of a New York City beauty parlor is determined to prove she can have it all. Her name is Estée Lauder, and she’s about to take the world by storm, in this dazzling new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Social Graces and Park Avenue Summer.
In New York City, you can disappear into the crowd. At least that’s what Gloria Downing desperately hopes as she tries to reinvent herself after a devastating family scandal. She’s ready for a total life makeover and a friend she can lean on—and into her path walks a young, idealistic woman named Estée. Their chance encounter will change Gloria’s life forever.
Estée dreams of success and becoming a household name like Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, and Revlon. Before Gloria knows it, she is swept up in her new friend’s mission and while Estée rolls up her sleeves, Gloria begins to discover her own talents. After landing a job at Saks Fifth Avenue, New York’s finest luxury department store, Gloria finds her voice, which proves instrumental in opening doors for Estée’s insatiable ambitions.
But in a world unaccustomed to women with power, they’ll each have to pay the price that comes with daring to live life on their own terms and refusing to back down.
Let's Call Her Barbie
Renée Rosen
She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.
When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she’s setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up.
In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.
As Ruth assembles her team of creative rebels—head engineer Jack Ryan who hides his deepest secrets behind his genius and designers Charlotte Johnson and Stevie Klein, whose hopes and dreams rest on the success of Barbie’s fashion—she knows they’re working against a ticking clock to get this wild idea off the ground.
In the decades to come—through soaring heights and devastating personal lows, public scandals and private tensions— each of them will have to decide how tightly to hold on to their creation. Because Barbie has never been just a doll—she’s a legacy.
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