Sirens

The "Roaring Twenties" was the age of flappers and bootleggers. Josephine Winter, sent to New York "to find a suitable (meaning, rich) husband" wants something more: the freedom to be who she is. She finds friendship with the lively Louise O'Keefe and romance with jazz musician Charlie. But, haunted by the spirit of her missing brother, Jo uncovers a nest of family lies that threatens everyone she loves. Jo will have to unlock secrets and stand up to the gangster Daniel Connor in order to find her heart and her soul in the decade of decadence.

She was a different person in the daylight hours, without her makeup and with her eyes like slits and her skinny frame wrapped in an oversize robe. I tried to hide my surprise, which reappeared when she emerged from her rooms an hour later, primped and wide-awake and put together. She peered in the library door, squinting.

"There you are. Hiding. It's time we put you right," she said as I stood up, and then she looked down at my old black shoes. "Good grief. First order of business is new shoes. And for pity's sake, take off those awful stockings before we leave the apartment."

"I'm not a flapper," I said.

"Yeah? Well, we can fix that," she responded. "Come on."