REVIEW: Glamorous Notions by Megan Chance

JayneB- Reviews / Book Reviews1950s / Agent/Spies/Undercover / costumes / Historical fiction / Hollywood / romantic-elements / thriller / Womens-FictionNo Comments

A costume designer’s past casts a long shadow over her well-constructed lies in this intriguing story about stolen identities, friendship, and betrayal from the author of A Splendid Ruin and A Dangerous Education.

Hollywood, 1955. As head costume designer for Lux Pictures, Lena Taylor hears startling confessions from the biggest movie stars. She knows how to keep their secrets—after all, none of their scandals can match her own.

Lena was once Elsie Gruner, the daughter of an Ohio dressmaker. Her gift for fashion design helped her win a coveted spot at an art academy in Rome. While in Italy, she became enthralled by the charismatic Julia, who drew her into a shadowy world of jazz clubs, code words, and mysterious deliveries. When one of Julia’s intrigues ended in murder, Elsie found herself in the middle of a bewildering sinister international plot. So she ran.

After fleeing to LA, Elsie became Lena—but she’s never stopped looking over her shoulder. Now, as her engagement to a screenwriter throws her into the spotlight, she’s terrified her façade won’t hold up. Will she figure out the truth about her past before everything falls apart?

CW/TW – Smoking and drinking. Seriously, everyone smokes something in this book. Then glugs down a martini or three. 

Dear Ms. Chance, 

The last time I read one of your books was – ahem, a while ago and it was a straight up historical romance. The gorgeous cover for this book enticed me into trying it. After (more than) a bit of frustration with the FMC, I found the ending satisfying if maybe a touch too easy given the stakes. 

Elsie (and yes, this is a cow name) grabs her chance to escape small town life in Ohio on a pig farm (yes) and get to Hollywood. But she’s jumped from the frying pan into the fire due to her poor choice of husband. Facing reality, she ditches that marriage and using new connections, she starts studying fashion design followed by an internship in Rome. With a new name (Lena), hair color (blonde), and self belief all due to a new friendship, she’s living the dream. Until it turns into a nightmare and she returns to LA. Fate and her gumption get her a new dream and a man she loves. But when what happened in Rome threatens her carefully crafted life, who can she trust and what will she be willing to do to keep what she has?

As I said, Elsie/Lena (new name) frustrated me a bit. When the reality of having hooked herself to a loser hits her, she makes a bold snap decision and sticks to it. I thought, go girl, dump that idiot, the pool hall owner gave you some good advice. Then little Elsie from Zanesville is reinvented and she embraces her new self. Blonde bombshell Lena enjoys the nightclubs, jazz, smoking (not just tobacco), and what she’s learning about fashion. She also seems to willfully turn a blind eye to what she’s doing for her friend but then Julia is very good at manipulating people to do just what she wants. 

Reality smacks Lena around a little before she washes up back in LA with two dear friends who know how to get her a fake birth certificate with which she can invent her new self. More chutzpah carries the day and Lena is on her way again to a new identity – one that will carry her to fame in Hollywood, get her a man she loves, and the attention of the gossip rags. But then her past comes calling again and Lena is soon circling the mental wagons in the face of everyone who seems determined to uncover everything she’s trying to hide. If the truth comes out, her past lies will explode in her face and she’ll lose everything and then some.

Okay, so frustration explanation time. Lena keeps getting worried about all of the above paragraph issues but will then think, “Oh, it won’t be uncovered – maybe. Everything will be fine – probably.” I can certainly understand how Lena could be enticed into doing what she did in Rome – small town pig-farm girl in a glamorous city gets entangled with someone who knows how to play on Lena’s imposter syndrome until Lena is willing to do things she deep down realizes are fishy. Okay, fine Lena can be gullible once, or twice if we count her horrible early taste in men. 

But then Lena deliberately buries her head in the sand when reality comes calling years later. Yes, the average person with no experience in this would probably also “hope on, hope ever” that her problems won’t rear up in her face again but Lena has experience and as her life spiraled down the plug hole, I couldn’t help but want to shake her a bit. 

What the book does supremely well is show the nightmare that Hollywood was in the 1950s. Not only are there gossip columnists ready to leap on anything (true or not) in your life that they can spin into an attention grabbing headline but there’s still probably the casting couch (not really in this book but I’m referring to historical reality) and just the mere fact that each year new hopefuls arrive to try and take your place. On top of all that though, in the early 50s there was the Red Scare, HUAC, and MPA working along with the CIA and FBI to craft a vision of American wholesomeness and out anyone suspected of not seeing life that way (fairies, as homosexuals are referred to in the book and working women). Heck when Lena’s varied issues are about to come crashing down on her, I wanted to curl up and bury my head for her as well as urge her to wake up and smell the coffee. 

The resolution isn’t quite what I expected but Lena redeems herself a bit in how she handles two people in her life. She pays off one debt and finally comes clean to someone who deserves the truth. Then she makes a momentous choice to be (well, as much as she can) herself from then on. Brava, Lena. B-

~Jayne             

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