Diva by Jillian Larkin Delivers (as always)

Diva by Jillian Larkin
YA Historical Fiction
Rating: PG
Coffee Beans: 4 of 5 stars
Spoilers: Nope
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book free via the publisher in exchange for this honest review.

Publisher’s Summary:
Parties, bad boys, speakeasies—life in Manhattan has become a woozy blur for Clara Knowles. If Marcus Eastman truly loved her, how could he have fallen for another girl so quickly? Their romance mustn't have been as magical as Clara thought. And if she has to be unhappy, she's going to drag everyone else down to the depths of despair right along with her.

Being a Barnard girl is the stuff of Lorraine Dyer's dreams. Finding out that Marcus is marrying a gold digger who may or may not be named Anastasia? A nightmare. The old Lorraine would have sat by and let the chips fall where they may, but she's grown up a lot these past few months. She can't bear to see Marcus lose a chance for true love. But will anyone listen to her?

Now that the charges against her have been dropped, Gloria Carmody is spending the last dizzying days of summer on Long Island, yachting on the sound and palling around with socialites at Forrest Hamilton's swanky villa. Beneath her smile, though, Gloria's keeping a secret. One that could have deadly consequences . . .

My Review:
I received Vixen (book 1 in the Flapper Series) a couple of years ago and LOVED it. I requested an ARC of Ingenue, book 2 in the series, and was denied. When Diva, book 3, came out, I tried again and was rewarded.

What I liked:
Even though I hadn’t read Ingenue, I knew where Vixen left off and where Diva picked up, and with the clues that Larkin sprinkled in throughout the story, I was able to fill in the story holes and not miss a beat.

Larkin does, once again, a brilliant job of making this another character driven novel. I love how the story is told from the points of view of all the main characters. Doing that really gave me a well-rounded and personal feel for each of the girls (and occasional guy), as well as a more 3-D image of the story. We’re given a view from Gloria that we would NEVER get from Clara. And the humor Lorraine provides would never be there had we only been told the story from Jerome’s point of view. You can’t help but form strong attachments to even the smaller-role characters with the way Larkin writes.

The 20’s has always been a favorite time period for me, and to have Larkin describe everything the way she does just puts me in heaven. I’d love to see this made into a movie so I could visually lust after all the gowns and shoes.

Favorite Line: It was better to risk loving too much before it was too late and all you were left with was regret. (pg 305, ebook)

What I didn’t like:
Even though I loved all the fashion talk about clothes and dresses, and I know that that was a big component of the 20’s, the name dropping got to be bit much at times.

I was a bit confused with Larkin’s dialogue tags. There would be a quote, then another person would be performing an action tagged onto someone else’s dialogue.

There were a few really good emotional scenes that really carry the momentum of the story that were interrupted with too much narrative which pulled me out and made the scene lose the impact Larkin was trying to give it. Also, there were a few high tension scenes that were just too short lived.

Overall, this is another terrific book in the Flapper Series, seamlessly knit with the first two, and an easy read. I really enjoyed reading it and will go back and pick up the second book just so I can get more of the Gloria, Clara, and Lorraine.

Happy reading, my friends!

--Me

Vixen by Jillian Larkin

Vixen (Book 1 of 3 in the Flapper Series)
Jillian Larkin
YA Historical Fiction


Spoiler Alert: A little
Coffee Bean Rating: 5/5

  

First of all, let me start out by saying, I LOVED this book, and have since passed it on to many friends. I was giddy when I saw it in hardcover on the shelves of my local book store. I wanted to grab someone and say, "I read that before it even came out and it's REALLY good, so you should buy it." But I didn't.

Set in 1920's Chicago, Jillian Larkin’s, Vixen, tells a story of love, jealousy, secrets, and revenge stitched together masterfully. The novel starts with a short prologue at only 169 words. I was left thinking, “Ooh, this is going to be good” The two sentences that got me?

And then, before snapping her bag closed, she added the small black handgun. Now she was ready.

Who’s she gonna kill? I don’t care! She’s gonna look HOT doing it.

Vixen is the first in The Flapper series and follows the life of Gloria Carmody. A rich white socialite engaged to the very eligible bachelor, Sebastian Grey, she thinks she’s in love. But that’s before she meets a black jazz piano player from the local speakeasy named Jerome Johnson.

Larkin tells the story from the alternating points of view of Gloria, her cousin Clara Knowles, and her best friend Lorraine Dyer. Through the book, it’s revealed that each girl has a secret to they’d kill to keep quiet.

Lorraine is hiding her midnight tryst with Gloria’s fiancé. Country Clara is hiding her Flapper past and scandalous ties in New York City. And Gloria is in love with a black man.

Each girl is tied to the other in her secrets, new friendships are formed, and old ones lost, as each has to deal with the decisions they make and their repercussions those decisions create.

Everything Larkin gave me is real and tangible. I could taste the descriptions of the clothes, hair, and atmosphere—from the dark and smoke-filled Speakeasies to the cheap liquor during Prohibition.

I felt the jealousy Lorraine had every moment she was with Gloria, the love she held for her best friend, and her unreturned feelings of love towards a boy who would never look at her the same way.

One downfall in the book was that I felt I could connect more with Lorraine rather than Gloria because everything about her was real. I felt that Gloria’s situation and problems were a little cliché and typical of this sort of book, but that in no way means I didn’t enjoy her character or her story.

I enjoyed the fact that Marcus and Gloria are best friends. That’s it. End of story. There isn’t a secret crush or love triangle involved—and it’s not because Marcus is gay. It’s because Larkin has seen that’s been overdone.

Despite the lack of romance between those two characters, there is A LOT of PG-rated sexual tension throughout the story and for each of the characters—from unreturned, reluctant, forbidden, to false love—it’s all there, and I found myself rooting for each of the characters.

This is a great debut novel. So many times, I see superficial writing and simple stories, especially in YA—it’s almost as if new authors are scared of going ‘too deep’. But not so with Larkin. Her novel is intricate and detailed, exciting and interesting.

When people say a book is character driven this is what they mean. The story is there and it’s strong, but it comes secondary to the characters and their arcs—their story. They are what move the plot. And it moves so smoothly.

I can’t say enough about how much I loved this book. It was a little over 300 pages, but it felt like a walk in the park. I can’t wait to get my hands on the second in the series.

--Me