This capture by the author is so rich in history offering a magnetic draw to the past without disrupting their true events.

Bestselling author Fiona Davis builds upon the secrets of the Frick Collection in a delightful blend of emotion and adventure. She'd lain on the lumpy sofa covered by a quilt, sometimes sleeping, sometimes staring up at the cracked ceiling, and ignored every entreaty. the duo set out to decipher the clues that will ultimately lead to a solution of a long-lost secret. Since he'd only recently taken over a studio in the popular Lincoln Arcade building on the Upper West Side, he hadn't had time to learn from the other, long-term tenants that she was, at the ripe age of twenty-one, washed up.While the Frick family seemed to have it all, the unveiling of secrets and schemes within their house was interesting. Supervised by her mother Kitty, Lillian started working as an artists muse when she was fifteen and many of her statues are on public display around New York City. I could tell from the beginning that she was going to be one of those characters that I didn't always agree with, but I cared about nonetheless. Angelica became the personal secretary of Miss Helen and became known as Miss Lilly to all concerned. I will say that as is usually the case with Davis's dual timeline plots, I enjoyed Lillian's story more than Veronica's, and there was a bit too much of a "happily ever after" ending for me, but those were my only gripes.

The Magnolia Palace is an intriguing historical novel with a misplaced diamond, a lady lost at the loss of a loved one, a demanding dad, a devoted daughter, a strange scavenger hunt, an attractive art assemblage, and a mysterious mystery. Lillian is successful in playing Cyrano de Bergerac between Helen and Richard, until she falls for him herself. She now works for Miss Helen, the daughter of the famous Henry Clay Frick, steel magnate and art collector.I appreciated Davis’s spotlight on the two women, on how difficult it is for women to survive in New York. Unbeknownst to Angelica, Helen, the daughter of the wealthy industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick, was interviewing candidates for the position of her own personal secretary.