The Dollhouse

Darby comes to New York City's Barbizon Hotel for Women to stay while she attends classes to become a secretary. It's 1952 and Darby doesn't have much on her plate of worth for women of this time: she's plain and she's poor, and she's spent her youth being cruelly bullied by her mother. Secretarial school isn't going well, and the fashion models she meets at the hotel are as brutal as her mother. And then she meets the hotel maid, Esme, and Esme introduces Darby to the vibrant world of jazz, and for the first time, Darby starts to live life. But there's another side to the jazz world that's dark, and we know this will not end well.

There's another storyline here, with Rose, an investigative reporter in present-day, looking into the Barbizon Hotel and Darby and Esme, and that's intriguing, too.

Mystery. Adventure. But the real draw of the story is the Barbizon Hotel and the women of the 1950's. A fascinating tale.