‘Fear is such a silent thing. It winds its way around you until it holds your heart in its hands.’ ( )

The prologue was intriguing, the the novel was just average historical fiction. ( )

So disappointing! I really wanted to like this book...all about couture and the sixties in NYC. BUT, the plot was very thin and bumpy which distracted from the details that were included about the couture work done in the back room. Moving on... ( )

This is the story about Kate and the creation of the pink dress that "the Wife" wore when the President was assassinated. It's about relationships too between Kate and Patrick, Kate and her sister, everyone at Chez Ninon and just everyone in general in the Irish part of New York in the late 50's and early 60s. Although I've read books about seamstresses before but set back in the 1920's and this had that feel to it, which was slightly confusing for me. I enjoyed the care and love that Kate puts into making this dress, a Chanel line for line creation. She is a true seamstress. She can feel the fabric sing just by touching it. She feels the fabric carries all the stories of everyone who has ever touched it, had a hand in creating it.

What made me keep thinking this was the 1920s was the fact that after watching Mad Men and how much bed hopping is in that show, and then to have Father John in this book frown on Kate and Patrick even kissing. I really enjoyed this book. It's a different perspective on this side of the Wife and is based on real people.

I won this book on Goodreads. ( )

I love Kennedy fiction when written well, and Nicole Mary Kelby has certainly done her research into the history of that iconic 'Chanel' suit, but the intricate stitching never really created a story for me. Backroom seamstress Kate, who makes up the suit from Chanel's design at Chez Ninon in New York, is a very believable character, talented and passionate about the clothes she creates for 'The Wife' at Maison Blanc, but let down by Patrick, the blockish butcher courting her. I kept thinking, she's not really going to abandon her dream job to marry him and help out in his shop, is she? Yes, no, yes, no - by the end of the book, which predictably coincides with the final outing of the pink suit, I'd completely lost interest in Kate too. There is also a random explosion, which has little effect apart from tipping Kate back towards saying 'yes', and an outing to 'Freedomland' that is nothing more than heavy-handed metaphor.

The first half of the book is captivating, carefully researched, based on real lives and historical fact, and evocative of another era. There are some beautiful descriptions of the suit in progress - 'It was like the memory of roses; it was the kind of pink that only the heart could understand' - and suitably romantic references to 'The Wife' and her husband - 'They always seemed to be on the verge of telling each other a secret, leaning towards each other as if in orbit, one drawn in by the other's gravity' - but Kate and the suit are let down by her depressing destiny to spend the rest of her life married to Patrick back in Ireland. Like the replica outfits that Kate creates for her sister, the glamour of Chez Ninon and the beautiful fabrics that Kate handles everyday are wasted on such small lives. ( )