Year of Lipstick and Poetry: A Novel

I Capture the Castle meets The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in this sparkling novel about a gifted young woman finding her voice in 1950s America.

It’s 1953, a time of postwar prosperity and sparkling suburban homes. But for twenty-year-old Emilia Neff, life doesn’t seem to be moving forward. The granddaughter of a famous author, living in the house he built in 1904, she’s grown up surrounded by reminders of the past and four sisters who count on her to be the reliable one who feeds the dog and puts out the milk bottles. It’s a pleasant enough existence, but Emilia—a witty, sympathetic observer and closet poet—wants something else. She craves excitement and a chance to be more than a relative of the late great Jasper Whitney.

Then new people—a glamorous neighbor, a charismatic businessman, and a photographer with a past—enter Emilia’s life, and with them comes the opportunity to reinvent herself . . . or maybe to show who she’s truly been all along. And when newly discovered secrets challenge the Jasper Whitney legacy, she has to decide what she owes the past and how she can embrace the future. A comedy of manners that brings to life both the charm and shadows of the 1950s, The Year of Lipstick and Poetry explores the timeless challenge to discover—and live—your truest self.