spotlight: A FINE IMITATION

A Fine Imitation

By

Amber Brock

Though Vera has beauty, pedigree, and a penthouse at the Angelus—the most coveted address on Park Avenue—she is living in quiet desperation. Amid the sparkling whirl of Prohibition-era Manhattan, she sustains her place at the top of the city’s pecking order through an unbroken loop of empty socializing and rigid adherence to propriety, which includes never wondering aloud why she waits nightly in her cavernous apartment for a husband who seldom comes home.

Then Emil Hallan arrives at the Angelus to paint a mural above its glittering subterranean pool. The handsome French artist shrouds his work, and himself, in secrecy, piquing Vera’s curiosity and sparking feelings in her that soon become impossible to ignore. Is he the man he claims to be? Vera can’t suppress her suspicions, for she too knows a little something about keeping secrets. After all, she secured her place in society by closely guarding her own from her time at Vassar, when her friendship with the bold, artistically gifted Bea Stillman brought her to the brink of catastrophe and social exile.

When the dangerous mysteries of Emil’s past come to light, Vera faces an impossible choice: cling to her familiar world of privilege or risk everything for the enigmatic man who has taken her heart, and may break it. Dazzling and compulsively readable, A Fine Imitation explores what happens when we realize that the lives we’ve been born to lead are not the lives that will make us happy. Join me in the chat room when I interview Jill