The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

Title: The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

Series: None

Year: 2014

Author: Genevieve Valentine

Summary: From award-winning author Genevieve Valentine, a "gorgeous and bewitching" (Scott Westerfeld) reimagining of the fairytale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses as flappers during the Roaring Twenties in Manhattan.

Jo, the firstborn, "The General" to her eleven sisters, is the only thing the Hamilton girls have in place of a mother. She is the one who taught them how to dance, the one who gives the signal each night, as they slip out of the confines of their father's townhouse to await the cabs that will take them to the speakeasy. Together they elude their distant and controlling father, until the day he decides to marry them all off.

The girls, meanwhile, continue to dance, from Salon Renaud to the Swan and, finally, the Kingfisher, the club they come to call home. They dance until one night when they are caught in a raid, separated, and Jo is thrust face-to-face with someone from her past: a bootlegger named Tom whom she hasn't seen in almost ten years. Suddenly Jo must weigh in the balance not only the demands of her father and eleven sisters, but those she must make of herself.

With The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, award-winning writer Genevieve Valentine takes her superb storytelling gifts to new heights, joining the leagues of such Jazz Age depicters as Amor Towles and Paula McClain, and penning a dazzling tale about love, sisterhood, and freedom.

Review: If ever there was a period in history more suited to a fairytale, this is it. The story of twelve sisters sneaking out at night to dance fits perfectly with the speakeasy life of the Roaring Twenties. Throw in an over-controlling father, and it's the perfect recipe for an epic Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling.

Jo is the oldest of twelve sisters -- all of whom are an object of shame for their father. Ever the business man, Mr. Hamilton wants nothing more than a son to carry on his name and business. However, twelve daughters later, his wife perishes and there is no son to be had.

The girls are kept upstairs mostly in the family townhouse. No one outside is quite sure how many Hamilton daughters there are, since most people have never seen more than two or three outside together at any time. And that's just how their father likes it; the girls are much easier to control and take care of as long as they stay out of the public eye. After all, he doesn't have his coveted son; what use would twelve daughters be to him?

But problems are only just beginning at home. With the strict rules their father enforces upon them, Jo fears her sisters may break under the pressure and run away. She's determined to keep the family together, to take care of her eleven sisters herself -- whatever it takes. So, to give them a taste at freedom, she takes them out dancing at speakeasies during the night while their father sleeps.

And that's where their adventure begins.

I wish so badly that I could fangirl hard over this story. It's everything you could wish for a 12DP tale set during the Roaring Twenties. Unfortunately, there were several objectionable things that kinda ruined this story for me.

Jo is called "The General" by her sisters -- and for a good reason. It's she who starts taking her sisters out at night for a small taste of freedom to keep them from fleeing home. She isn't squeamish about dishing out the orders; she keeps everything rolling smoothly. Each night for her is down to a strategic science, and her sisters don't disobey.

I really did like Jo a lot. She was a good balance of recklessness and control, and in many ways reminded me much of the eldest princess from the original fairytale. She was such a flawed character, but she loved her sisters almost to a fault. She'd do anything for them, and did everything she could to keep the order and to keep them all at home. Her character growth and understanding that she can't control everything was one of my favorite parts of the book -- as an older sister myself, I can completely sympathize with that. The whole tone of sisterhood in this book was phenomenal. There's bickering, but there's love and laughter, too; the relationship they all had felt very genuine.

Some of the girls, like Lou and Doris and Ella, really stood out among the twelve girls, but it was difficult to really see a ton of character development with the other sisters. Which, I'll agree, makes sense for the length of the book; there's only so much you can focus on without writing something to rival Tolstoy and Hugo. The author did try to give the sisters each different personalities, but it was still hard to pull some of the younger ones apart.

There is definitely a lot of dancing in this book. Jo and Lou first begin the love of dancing -- sneaking into movies to memorize routines and different sequences and then bringing them home to practice at night. Once they begin sneaking out, there are a few different speakeasies they visit, each one packed with whatever waltz, Charleston, etc. etc. you could wish for. Kingfisher Club is the one they call home, but they're actually not there for a good portion of the book. Odd, I thought, when that's the club sponsored so loudly in the title. No one knows that the twelve girls showing up to dance are all sisters, and the girls never give out their name (as per Jo's instructions), so everyone just calls them "Princess" -- a clever and appreciative nod to the original fairytale.

The style of the book took me a bit to get into, honestly. At first, I thought it was really choppy, since you've got a number of shorter scenes and flashbacks that are constantly flipping back and forth. The amount of backstory, particularly for Jo, was a lot of telling on the author's part, and I think I would have preferred to see that action happen in real time, not in choppy flashbacks.

Advisory: Mild peril and violence. Police raid a speakeasy, and a few characters are injured in that scene and in a few others, but nothing is terribly graphic.

On the issue of romance and sexual content... oh my. Obviously a few of the girls fall in love throughout the course of the book, but since we're sneaking out and getting drunk, it's not kept clean. One sister partakes in an off-page sex scene (not described, but definitely hinted that it happened), while others flirt, discuss the touchiness of boys, give kisses, etc. [Spoiler alert] Once their father announces his plan to marry them off one by one, the sisters arrange a marriage with a boy from their speakeasy acquaintance to free her from the father's control; the same boy is in love with another sister, but marries the other to help her out. He later returns to possibly claim his true love while still being married to the other sister. It's just an odd situation. [End spoiler]

The whole life of the speakeasies was one that kinda bothered me. For an illegal activity, it's not exactly portrayed as such. The girls don't have any problems with sneaking out and dancing. Granted, it's the alcohol portion of that life that was illegal during Prohibition years, but the girls partake of that as well (I don't remember any of them getting completely drunk, though). The speakeasy life is the only way they can actually control what's going on, and it's described really as their source of freedom. [Spoiler alert] Once they break free from their father's control, it's the life most of them return to. The illegal life becomes their happily ever after -- which really didn't end the book on a good moral tone for me. [End spoiler]

This other advisory note may be the first time I've had to write this on a review here: the author does include some hints/light descriptions of homosexual/possibly transgender characters. Jo realizes the Kingfisher is a good club for secrets when she spots two men together dancing cheek to cheek. One of the sisters is mentioned more than once for enjoying dancing with other women rather than men, and has a special female friend by the end of the book. Another sister begins to don men's clothing despite looking scandalous, though it is a little unclear if she's truly transgender. For me, this was one of the biggest problems/letdowns of the book. I believe that God created two different and distinct genders and set clear definitions for His plan for romance and marriage. It makes me feel sick and sorrowful to see people participating this in gender confusion and perverting something beautiful that God created.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars