On a summer's day in 1922 Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, leaving behind a marriage that's not as perfect as it seems and a past that she buried long ago. She is charged with the care of a stunning young girl with a jet-black fringe and eyes wild and wise beyond her fifteen years. This girl is hungry for stardom and Cora for something she doesn't yet know. Cora will be many things in her lifetime - an orphan, a mother, a wife, a mistress - but in New York she is a chaperone and her life is about to change.
It is here under the bright lights of Broadway, in a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies with their forbidden whispers behind closed doors thrive, that Cora finds what she has been searching for. It is here, in a time when illicit thrills and daring glamour sizzle beneath the laws of propriety that her life truly begins. It is here that Cora and her charge, Louise Brooks, take their first steps towards their dreams.
Soon to be a feature film from the creators of Downton Abbey
On a summer's day in 1922, Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, charged with the care of a stunningly beautiful young girl with a jet-black bob and wisdom way beyond her fifteen years.
The girl is Louise Brooks and, for her, New York offers a chance of stardom beneath the bright lights of Broadway. For Cora, whose formative years were spent at The New York Home for Friendless Girls, the trip offers the opportunity to discover the truth about her past. It will also, although she doesn't realize it yet, offer her the chance for a very different future.
Set in a time of illicit thrills and daring glamour, a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies thrive behind closed doors, The Chaperone tells Cora's story as she finally discovers who she is and - more importantly - who she wants to be.
'What a beautiful book. I loved every page' Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
'This is that rare, precious and fabulous thing - a proper story, with characters you care about desperately and root for right to the end . . . I can't recommend this novel highly enough' Daily Mail
'A lovely novel, full of humanity' Sunday Times
