My Fair Frauds, the third historical novel jointly written by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne (The Starlets), is a highly entertaining Gilded Age caper combining greed, ambition, and an unlikely friendship between two savvy women.
Forced out of her Kansas home by the ruthless city bankers who conned her father, Coraline "Cora" O'Malley is working for peanuts as a stage magician's assistant (and sometime thief), determined to save up enough money to buy back her family's farm. During a Manhattan show, Cora meets Alice Archer, who is posing as the Grand Duchess Marie Charlotte Gabriella of Würrtemberg, a small German kingdom rich in emerald mines and beset by political unrest. Alice is working a long con on the five wealthy families who cheated her father in a shady railroad deal, planning to swindle them out of their wealth in turn. Cora's presence gives Alice an inspiration: the young woman will pose as the duchess's cousin, newly arrived in New York, and help lure in her targets. Along with Alice's faithful maid, Béatrice, and her taciturn cook, Dagmar, the women plot a scam that will take them from the gritty streets of the Lower East Side to Manhattan's most opulent drawing rooms.
Kelly and Thorne send their protagonists racing around the city, traveling by foot, carriage, and hansom cab, as they dance and deceive their way through balls, operas, and teas. Though Cora proves a quick study in deportment, dancing, and other skills, she's frustrated that Alice sees her as more pawn than partner in their scam. Alice, meanwhile, is determined to retain control over her grand plan, but finds it's lonely at the top--especially when Ward McAllister, society tastemaker and Alice's accomplice, begins angling for a larger share of the take. Other complications ensue, in the form of a mark who becomes enamored with Cora and a persistent (and handsome) young journalist who seems dangerously close to ferreting out the truth. Alice and Cora will each find their mettle and their consciences tested as they speed toward the climax of their scheme. The authors delve into each woman's motivations--Alice's deep-seated need for revenge and Cora's longing for her vanished home--as well as the ways both women are determined to subvert the limits placed on women by 1880s society.
Witty, fast-paced, and packed with historical details of the smart set in Gilded Age Manhattan, My Fair Frauds is a well-plotted adventure and a satisfying twist on a classic sting narrative. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne's third joint historical novel follows two con women scheming to take down five robber barons in Gilded Age New York.