THE IT GIRLS
by Karen
Harper
GENRE: Historical
Fiction
BLURB:
They rose from genteel poverty, two beautiful sisters, ambitious,
witty, seductive. Elinor and Lucy Sutherland are at once each other’s fiercest
supporters and most vicious critics.
Lucy transformed herself into Lucile, the daring fashion designer
who revolutionized the industry with her flirtatious gowns and brazen
self-promotion. And when she married Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon her life seemed to
be a fairy tale. But success came at many costs-to her marriage and to her
children…and then came the fateful night of April 14, 1912 and the scandal that
followed.
Elinor’s novels titillate readers, and it’s even asked in polite
drawing rooms if you would like to “sin with Elinor Glyn?” Her work pushes the
boundaries of what’s acceptable; her foray into the glittering new world of
Hollywood turns her into a world-wide phenomenon. But although she writes of
passion, the true love she longs for eludes her.
But despite quarrels and misunderstandings, distance and destiny,
there is no bond stronger than that of the two sisters-confidants, friends,
rivals and the two “It Girls” of their day.
EXCERPT
from an article written by the author about The
It Girls
THE AMAZING SUTHERLAND SISTERS
In the late Victorian and early
Edwardian eras, two very different British sisters overcame poverty and
obscurity to carve pioneering paths through the restrictive rules and rigid
regulations of society. Both worked
their way to fame and fortune in an age in which being divorced, going into
trade on one’s own, especially for women with strict upbringing and some
aristocratic ties, was strictly taboo. I
was thrilled to find such amazing women and make them my heroines in The It
Girls.
Both Lucile and Elinor Sutherland
were career women in an age in which the only proper career was marriage and
motherhood. When the eras they knew best
were over, they shifted gears and sped into the Roaring 20s. Elinor eventually wrote for the silent movies
in Hollywood and hobnobbed with early film stars. After an international fashion career, Lucile
designed for the common woman in the Sears Catalogue. Yet these sisters, reared in the wilds of
Canada and then on the backwater Isle of Jersey, were not common for their
time.
Lucile Sutherland, later Lady
Duff-Gordon, (1862 – 1934,) was rebellious, charming, determined and
outgoing. When her husband deserted her
and her daughter to run off with a “pantomime girl,” Lucile began to design, cut
and sew fabulous fashions on her dining room table. She forged a path for women designers, which
was then strictly the realm of men. She
dressed the rich, famous and royal and fought for innovative changes.
In her 1932 autobiography
Discretions and Indiscretions, Lucile relates an incident when she was fitting
a gown in her shop for Mary, Duchess of York, wife of George, Duke of York,
later King George V. Lucile spilled pins
all over the floor, and the duke knelt in front of her to help pick them up. Ah, a future king kneeling before her!
Lucile forged the way to get women
out of corsets and boldly put side slits in long skirts so women would not have
to take little steps. She certainly was
taking big ones! She was one of the
first to design silky, lacy lingerie instead of stiff linen or cotton
pantaloons and petticoats. She weathered
the “immoral woman” accusations (mostly from “moral” married men) because woman
dared to love her light-weight, fancy but racy designs.
Lucile first used fashion shows with
live “mannequins”/models, rather than showing her costumes on stuffed, faceless
dummies. She personally recruited tall,
slender woman, even raiding salesgirls from Harrod’s. She called these women her ‘goddesses,’ gave
them romantic names and taught them social graces.
AUTHOR Bio
and Links:
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Karen Harper is a
former university (Ohio State) and high school English teacher. Published since
1982, she writes contemporary suspense and historical novels about real British
women. She is the author of The Royal Nanny, and several Tudor era books that
have been bestsellers in the UK and Russia. A rabid Anglophile, she likes
nothing more than to research her novels on site in the British Isles. Harper
won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for Dark Angel, and her novel Shattered
Secrets was judged one of the Best Books of 2014 by Suspense Magazine. The
author and her husband live in Ohio and love to travel.
For more information please visit:
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