What a cover!! Today I’m throwing the spotlight on a new title by Susanne Dunlap: The Adored One.
If you know me, you know I love the days of early entertainment and this novel sounds SO enticing!!
Here’s the scoop:
Lillian Lorraine was a naive 15-year-old chorine on Broadway when she attracted the notice of the notorious 41-year-old Florenz Ziegfeld. Accustomed to getting what he wanted, Ziegfeld took Lillian under his wing and into his arms, giving her coveted numbers in the Ziegfeld Follies and taking control of her career. But Lillian’s rebellious spirit chafed against him, refusing to play according to his rules, and nearly destroying her own career in the process. The Adored One follows her through rise and fall after rise and fall as she comes of age in a world where her youthful beauty was an asset-and a liability.
“Talented, beautiful, fiercely independent, flighty… there aren’t enough adjectives to describe the intensely sympathetic and heartbreakingly reckless Lillian Lorraine… Buckle up; it’s a wild ride. I enjoyed The Adored One immensely.”
– Mitchell James Kaplan, author of Rhapsody
“Broadway of over a hundred years ago comes vividly to life in this story of the enchanting showgirl Lillian Lorraine. You will cheer for this gorgeous survivor all the way.”
– Stephanie Cowell, American Book Award winner and author of Claude & Camille and The Boy in the Rain
About the Author:
Susanne Dunlap is the author of twelve works of historical fiction for adults and teens, as well as an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. Her love of historical fiction arose partly from her studies in music history at Yale University (PhD, 1999), partly from her lifelong interest in women in the arts as a pianist and non-profit performing arts executive. Her novel The Paris Affair won first place in its category in the CIBA Dante Rossetti awards for Young Adult Fiction. The Musician’s Daughter was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Bank Street Children’s Book of the Year, and was nominated for the Utah Book Award and the Missouri Gateway Reader’s Prize. In the Shadow of the Lamp was an Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award nominee. Susanne earned her BA and an MA (musicology) from Smith College, and lives in Biddeford, ME, with her little dog Betty.
(Susanne! We have so many similar interests that I just know that we would be kindred spirits and could walk our dogs together and talk about musical theater!)
But my enthusiasm makes me digress, because…
Here’s an excerpt! (NB – one “semi-swear” use of H-E- double hockey sticks)
For the next two weeks, Fred and I saw each other secretly whenever we could. I didn’t ask him again about Fanny, but I couldn’t look her in the eye at the theater, and I knew she figured something was wrong. I wasn’t sure she knew anything at all, until the night everyone knew, and everyone took sides.
I was waiting to go on for one of my beauty numbers, wearing the most expensive costume of all. It was just about the time for me to run daintily onto the stage, and I cleared my throat for my song and loosened my jaw to get rid of any tension that would make my voice tight. I stepped forward to go on stage. RRRip! It’s an awful sound, one no actress wants to hear seconds before going on stage. I figured I’d got the sequined fabric caught on a nail sticking up from the floor or something. But when I turned to check, there was Fanny, her foot planted on my hem; just below a tear it would be impossible to mend.
“Oops.” Fanny folded her arms across her chest and stared straight into my eyes. I’d never seen an expression like that on her face before. Bitter, angry, sad, all mixed up together.
“What are you doing?” I still hoped it was an accident, that she’d just let me go on and we could talk about it after the show.
“I’m sure I don’t know. What the hell are you doing with my fella?” Fanny said it right out loud. Everyone in the wings heard her, and probably some people in the audience.
I was mad at myself and mad at Fred, but I took it out on Fanny. “Just because you can’t keep a man doesn’t mean I did anything!”
I heard the gasps and then the silence. Before I could turn and go on stage, Fanny was on top of me, grabbing at my costume, my headdress, my hair. “Why, you!”
Nothing gets me riled up like having people get the wrong end of things and blaming me. I didn’t go after Fred, he came after me! She should be doing this to him! I gave it right back to her, scratching and kicking. It felt good to thrash out and punch someone, even though after a minute I didn’t know why. I wasn’t just angry at the situation I’d gotten into, I was mad at my life.
“Stop it!” Bert Williams, risking his career for even touching us, took hold of each of our shoulders and separated us. “You missed your cue,” he said to me. He took out a hankie and wiped a little blood off a scratch on my face.
But I was still white hot. “No, I haven’t!” Before he could stop me I stormed onto the set. The look on the chorines’ faces when they saw me come out a total wreck—hair a mess, gown torn, makeup running—made me laugh. No one could keep me from doing my part. They’d been singing their background without me, but I started the number over and performed it all the way through like it was nothing. At the end the audience laughed and clapped anyway, probably thinking what I did was a clever variation, something to change things up a bit, like a staged police raid.
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