Bachelor Girl begins with an estate auction: Jacob Ruppert, the millionaire owner of the New York Yankees, has just left his estate and the bulk of his fortune to an unknown actress, Helen Winthrope. The book then takes us back to 1920s New York, where Helen is enjoying the life of a “bachelor girl” – a working woman living on her own terms. Having just recovered from a major medical procedure, she fills in for the manager of a struggling theatre and discovers a love for producing plays. Jacob Ruppert, who was partially responsible for the accident that killed Helen’s father years ago, has kept in touch with her family, and takes an interest in supporting Helen’s career. Helen becomes close friends with Ruppert’s secretary Albert, a gay man who keeps his professional life strictly separate from his weekends with the gay community, and they form a comfortably platonic partnership.

Bachelor Girl is such a captivating story and I had a lot of fun losing myself in it. I love the characters of Helen and Albert, and I was totally caught up in how their feelings for the people they loved were so constrained by the social mores of their time. I love the subplot about Helen and her friend Clarence, and how they kissed when they were younger but because Clarence is black, they both got in trouble for it. Helen had her mouth washed out with soap and Clarence likely got it worse. There’s a moment where Clarence falls in love with a light-skinned biracial woman, and Helen thinks bitterly of how her skin isn’t that much lighter, but there’s a world of difference in how Clarence can interact with each of them. Helen falls in love with Albert, who is also unattainable, and while she goes to questionable lengths to ensure he never leaves her for a man, she still remains a sympathetic character.

I also absolutely love Albert, and his story arc. He starts off really confident that he has figured out his boss’s secrets and that they share an intimate understanding of each other, but then at several points realizes he may not understand his boss as much as he thinks he does. There’s an appealing naivete about him overall, and how he tends to just trust people. He falls in love with a couple of men over the course of the story, and I wanted more than anything for him to find happiness.

Bachelor Girl is a wonderful snapshot of life in 1920s and 1930s America, with compelling characters you can’t help but root for. I had a great time with this book and would love to learn more of Helen and Albert’s stories.

Celebrate historical fiction with the Timeless Tour, from April 16 – May 4!

For more information, visit www.timelesstour.ca.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Today, for Simon and Schuster Canada’s #TimelessTour blog tour on historical fiction, I have a guest post by Genevieve Graham, author of Come from Away. 

In Come from Away, the heroine Grace meets Rudi at a Christmas party. For this post, Genevieve Graham shares her own romantic story in the snow!

Guest Post by Genevieve Graham

I’m going to cheat on this one. My particular romantic experience didn’t happen at Christmas, but it did happen in the snow. It was March 28, 1992, and I was skiing by myself at Sunshine Village, in Banff Alberta. If you are a skier, you know that when you come to the bottom of a double or triple (or quad) chairlift, you generally look for a partner to ride up the hill with. When a tall, handsome man in the line called out “Single!”, I joined him on the double chair. He was the same age as I was and extremely outgoing, with a warm smile. We ended up skiing together all day, then we made plans to meet up the next morning at Lake Louise ski resort at 10am by the inflatable (promotional) Coke can. I could hardly wait to see him – but that morning the friend I was staying with wanted to go out for a long, leisurely brunch. By the time I reached Lake Louise and discovered the inflatable Coke can was no longer on display, it was past 11:30. Utterly disappointed, I made my way to the ticket desk anyway … and found him sitting on a bench, looking just as utterly disappointed. Just like me, he’d been 90 minutes late, and figured we’d never meet again. We spent a wonderful second day together. Then we spent the next week together in Calgary. And guess what? Feb 19, 2018 was our 25^th Wedding Anniversary. How’s that for romance?

Celebrate historical fiction with the Timeless Tour, from April 16 – May 4!

For more information, visit www.timelesstour.ca.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for the invitation to join this blog tour and to the author for the post.

Today, for Simon and Schuster Canada’s #TimelessTour blog tour on historical fiction, I have a guest post by Kim Van Alkemade, author of Bachelor Girl. 

For this post, Kim van Alkemade tells us about one of her favourite theatre experiences!

Guest post by Kim Alkemade

I had already delved into the work of the playwright Eugene O’Neill while I was researching Bachelor Girl, so I was beyond thrilled when I learned that the Irish Repertory Theatre would be staging a revival of his 1920 play The Emperor Jones. It was a fabulous production and sitting in the front row of their intimate theater gave me a visceral sense of what it would have been like to see the play staged at The Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village. The lead actor, Obi Abili, was spectacular in the part, and that helped me understand Charles Gilpin’s accomplishment in originating the role. I really loved “casting” Gilpin in the play Helen produces in the novel. Here’s a link you might like to follow to learn more about this particular theatrical experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOjI64Y0TP4.

Celebrate historical fiction with the Timeless Tour, from April 16 – May 4!

For more information, visit www.timelesstour.ca.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for the invitation to join this blog tour and to the author for the post.