Teddy
A Novel
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3.9 • 12 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Good Morning America Buzz Pick
“Effervescent and cool, Teddy is the perfect read if your trip to Capri gets canceled and your La Dolce Vita itch needs scratching.”—Washington Post
Lessons in Chemistry meets Mad Men in this wildly entertaining debut novel set in glamorous Rome, which follows the free-spirited wife of an American diplomat as she desperately tries to contain a scandal of her own making.
It is the summer of 1969 and Rome is awash with glamour and intrigue: the stars of Cinecittà are drinking and dancing along the paparazzo-lined Via Veneto, where royalty, American expats, and the occasional Russian spy rub shoulders.
Teddy Huntley Carlyle has just arrived in Italy from Dallas, Texas, eager for a fresh start with her new husband, a diplomat assigned to the American embassy. After years of “spoiling like old milk,” in the words of her controlling, politically-minded uncle, Teddy vows to turn over a new leaf. She will be the soul of discretion; she will be conservative, proper, and polite. She will be her most beautiful, luminous self, wearing the right clothes and the perfect lipstick, and she will be good. She will charm her husband’s colleagues at the embassy, and no one will have a word to say against her.
Teddy keeps her promise, more or less—until the Fourth of July, when her new life explodes as spectacularly as the colorful fireworks lighting the Roman sky over the embassy grounds. Now, Teddy is in the middle of a mess that even her powerful connections and impeccable manners can’t contain . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dunlay impresses with her multilayered character-driven debut about a Texas woman who lands in hot water after she marries a State Department employee at the height of the Cold War. The narrative begins in 1969 Rome, where Teddy Huntley Carlyle Shepard is about to be questioned by investigators for reasons unknown to the reader. From there, Teddy's story unfurls in flashbacks, starting with her first date with future husband David Shepard earlier in the year, whose unspecified job involves "encouraging economic cooperation" between the U.S. and Europe. David is now in Milan, and the night before the interrogation, Teddy attended a Fourth of July party at the American ambassador's residence. The dress she wore is stained with blood, and she worries that news of what happened there—the details of which come out much later—will cause an international scandal ("My name will be in everyone's mouths, crunched and swallowed between the crushed ice and maraschino cherries of their juleps and Manhattans"). Teddy hints at secrets she's kept from David, including her romance with a Russian named Yevgeny Larin, whom she last saw in 1963, and considers herself a "wolf in sheep's clothing." Early on, Teddy is portrayed as a superficial person, but her hidden depths come to light in the novel's satisfying climax. This is a winner.
