From the New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth
Avenue comes the compelling national bestselling novel about the thin
lines between love and loss, success and ruin, passion and madness, all
hidden behind the walls of The Dakota--New York City's most famous
residence.
When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of
the grand New York apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for
Sara Smythe, her world is suddenly awash in possibility--no mean feat
for a servant in 1884. The opportunity to move to America. The
opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota. And the opportunity
to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else...and is
living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.
One hundred years later, Bailey Camden is desperate for new
opportunities: Fresh out of rehab, the former interior designer is
homeless, jobless, and penniless. Bailey's grandfather was the ward of
famed architect Theodore Camden, yet Bailey won't see a dime of the
Camden family's substantial estate; instead, her "cousin"
Melinda--Camden's biological great-granddaughter--will inherit almost
everything. So when Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation
of her lavish Dakota apartment, Bailey jumps at the chance, despite her
dislike of Melinda's vision. The renovation will take away all the
character of the apartment Theodore Camden himself lived in...and died
in, after suffering multiple stab wounds by a former Dakota employee who
had previously spent seven months in an insane asylum--a madwoman named
Sara Smythe.
A century apart, Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle
against the golden excess of their respective ages--for Sara, the
opulence of a world ruled by the Astors and Vanderbilts; for Bailey, the
nightlife's free-flowing drinks and cocaine--and take refuge in the
Upper West Side's gilded fortress. But a building with a history as
rich, and often as tragic, as the Dakota's can't hold its secrets
forever, and what Bailey discovers inside could turn everything she
thought she knew about Theodore Camden--and the woman who killed him--on
its head.
