Luxe By Anna Godbersen Views

Books

The Luxe is a young adult novel by author Anna Godbersen. It follows the lives of Manhattan's upper class in 1899. The story is similar to the Gossip Girl series, featuring beautiful socialites and various romantic encounters. The introduction centers around two sisters, one of whom is said to have died after being thrown from her friend's carriage into the Hudson. It was published in 2007.[1]

'The Luxe' by Anna Godbersen opens with a funeral scene. It is New York in 1899. A young high-society miss, Elizabeth Holland, has died in mysterious circumstances, and her mourners include her sister Diana, her handsome fiancé Henry Schoonmaker, and her (ahem) best friend Penelope Hayes. After this intriguing beginning, we go back to the time Elizabeth returned from her travels in Europe, and find out what exactly happened to her. What follows isn't a proper murder mystery, but a web of scheming, passion, secrets, lies, jealousy, blackmail, luxurious dresses and glittering balls, where everybody loves somebody else and marrying for money battles it out with true love. Oh, and you can't find trustworthy servants anywhere, but that goes without saying.

I didn't expect an historical novel of this kind to be particularly accurate, so I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Luxe'. Apart from the characters occasionally sounding very modern - to say nothing of their bed-hopping habits! - Godbersen captures the feel of the time period quite well. The author clearly loves the literature of the era, and I'm not at all surprised she lists Edith Wharton's 'The Custom of the Country' as her favourite book; the unscrupulous Penelope Hayes (who is a rather brilliant character, by the way, albeit of the unlikeable variety) is doubtedly an homage to that novel's anti-heroine, Undine Spragg.

In the self-contained world of young Gilded Age Manhattan socialites, Elizabeth and Diana Holland reign supreme. Or so it seems. Scratch the surface, though, and you can detect festering jealousies that threaten to topple them. Elizabeth suffers a more literal fall when her carriage overturns and she is carried away by the swift East River current. That's only the beginning of the action and suspense in The Luxe, the launch volume in a teen series by Anne Godbersen's.