On Gin Lane by Brooke Lea Foster

 

Title:  On Gin Lane

Author:  Brooke Lea Foster

Narrated by:  Jennifer Aquino

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 55 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster.  Thank-you!

 Everleigh “Lee” Farrows is read to have a wonderful summer.  She is engaged to the handsome Roland and their future is planned out.  They are having one last summer together before they are married and are staying at the new hotel on Gin Lane that Roland has built at Southampton.  He has named it the Everleigh in her honor.  Everything seems perfect at the opening night party until the hotel burns down.  Who set the fire?  What secrets does Roland not want revealed?

I thought this story was interesting.  I liked the historical mystery.  I also enjoyed how Lee discovers what she herself wants out of life.  I loved her pursuit of photography.  I did have mixed feelings about a few items in this book. I had a hard time imagining parents in 1957 allowing their daughter to stay with her fiancé for an entire summer before their wedding.  Especially upper crust parents.  The love story between Lee and Roland didn’t have enough growth.  Roland always seemed like a bad guy to the story, and I didn’t care about their relationship nearly as much as I cared about the budding relationship between her and her friend Curtis.  I love how Marilyn Monroe cameoed in the novel.  I loved the Southampton setting, the elites, the story of finding oneself, and the time period of the 1950s. 

Narrator Jennifer Aquino did an excellent job and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook.