The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty

Checking on Goodreads I see that this quite a popular novel at the moment, but that it's also attracted some criticism. It also got a mention on Book Riot's list of the best 21st century novels written by women. I gave it three stars out of ten, and although it was a decent enough novel, I have to say it wouldn't really get on to my list of top novels. It's not exactly chick-lit or a romantic novel, I suppose you could characterise it as being historical fiction. 

I generally liked it, but I felt like it took a bit of time to get going and I was more gripped in the middle than at the beginning. Cora was a likeable main character who had quite an interesting journey and I was interested in the Louise Brooks parts, but having read some quite evocative novels from the period (I highly recommend Rules of Civility for both the atmosphere and the heroine), I felt like this missed out on capturing something about New York. Maybe about Louise too. I didn't find her to be a character you could really care about, she came across as being an annoying brat, even after Cora finds out about her history. Perhaps this was deliberate though. 

Love how sexy, dangerous and cross she looks in some images (link)

 It was interesting to find out what happened to both Cora and Louise afterwards, but I agree that the last part of the novel swept over great swathes of history ending up in a litany of who died when; that was not exactly the greatest part of the novel. Perhaps it would have worked better if the last we saw of Louise and Cora was the letter that Cora received from NYC.

Anyway, it is an okay library read, but I'm glad I didn't buy it. I will be attempting other books from the list in future though.