Here is the proposed cover for Jane Healey’s novel.
My cousin, Jane, lives in the Boston area and is an accomplished magazine writer … she recently wrote a novel called THE SATURDAY EVENING GIRLS CLUB that is being “auditioned” through an amazon.com program called Kindle Scout. I guess you could call it crowd sourcing. You can read the first couple of chapters and then make comments or vote. At the end of the month, based on those votes and comments, Jane could get a publishing deal for her book, which is pretty exciting!
It’s very convenient to download those first two chapters to your Kindle right from the website, which I did, or you can read the chapters on your computer.
Wow, Jane really knocked this one out of the park with a well-drawn central character named Caprice (that name tells you something of her nature), conflict, and a fascinating historical setting with these young immigrant women as the main characters. Historical novels with a first person POV can be tricky to pull off because it’s not easy getting inside the head of someone who lived a century ago, but I think Jane has done just that here. It helps that she has done a lot of research into Boston history for her magazine articles.
This isn’t my usual sort of novel to read (What, nothing explodes! No shooting? No determined character facing an impossible mission? Come on now …) but the story really draws you in. It kept reminding me of “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” set in 1908. (Hey, I happened to pre-screen that novel when my daughter wanted to read it way back when.)
Jane’s novel is set in 1908 Boston and presents an interesting connection between the high society ladies who generally hire the immigrant “girls” who are mostly Italian, Irish, and Jewish … in this case, the two groups discover they have much to offer one another. I’ve only read the chapters available on Kindle Scout, and I was very disappointed to arrive at the end of the sample. (Jane, send the rest of the novel ASAP!)
If historical novels are your thing, or just good novels, please consider giving Jane’s chapters a read and a vote!
David Healey author 