The Modern Girl

Two women, ninety years apart, and an abandoned house that holds the key to a secret.


When Frances Stewart wins a beauty pageant in 1931, she also wins a Hollywood screen test which enables her to leave behind her staid Victorian lifestyle in New Zealand and become the ‘modern girl’ she aspires to be. But she soon finds the reality behind the glamorous Hollywood facade isn’t as wonderful as she’d imagined.


Ninety years later, Paige Sinclair travels to New Zealand to meet her previously unknown and ailing grandmother, and an ancestral home she’s been told she will inherit. With a failed marriage and alone in the world, Paige feels compelled to look back into the past to satisfy her need for family and connections. So she starts with her grandmother and the mysterious, abandoned house which holds the key to a secret Paige is determined to uncover. But some secrets are never quite as they seem…


A compelling story of love, family and secrets, for fans of Fiona Valpy, Mary Ellen Taylor, and Hannah Richell.