Hello gentle reader,

Jazz Age January is a reading challenge hosted by Leah at Books Speak Volumes. The idea is to read books related to the Roaring Twenties during the month of January.If you want to join in the fun, read about it here.

This week, I’m reviewing DOLLFACE by Renee Rosen.

Title: Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties

Author: Renee Rosen

Genre: Adult Historical Fiction

Publication: 5th November 2013 by NAL Trade

Blurb (from Goodreads):

America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of woman—the flapper.

Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname “Dollface.”

As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicago’s infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refuses to lose.

The heady life she’s living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. And as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life, as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

What I thought:

I really enjoyed this book. I picked it up because I read somewhere fans of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire would enjoy it, and I wasn’t disappointed. I found in this book the same atmosphere and the same kind of plot that I love in Boardwalk Empire. What I also thought very interesting was that this story is told from the point of view of the women: wives and mistresses of the mobsters.

All in all, it’s an excellent example of historical fiction set in the 1920s, and I do recommend it if you read Adult books.

What have you been reading this week? Make sure to leave me a comment below!