Review: The Gilded Cage (A Canary Club Novella) by Sherry D. Ficklin

Title: The Gilded Cage
Author: Sherry D. Ficklin
Series: Canary Club 
Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Publication date: December 1st 2016
Pages: 80 (kindle)
Source: Netgalley






Masie, the flaxen-haired daughter of notorious boot-legger Dutch Schultz, returns home from boarding school to find her family in crisis. Her mother is dangerously unstable, her father's empire is on the brink of ruin, and the boy she once loved has become a ruthless killer for hire. To keep her family's dangerous secrets Masie is forced into a lie that will change the course of her future - and leave her trapped in a gilded cage of her own making. As she watches her world fall apart, Masie must decide whether to take her place in the hierarchy, or spread her wings, leaving the people she loves, and the life she despises, far behind her.

Two worlds collide in Gatsby era New York, in a time of dazzling speakeasies and vicious shoot-outs, of gritty gangsters and iridescent ingénues, where not everything that sparkles is gold.

*This is the first of the Canary Club series and is a short story introduction into the forthcoming novels.

Goodreads

In general I am a big fan of historical fiction and lately I got really interested in the roaring ‘20s and The Gilded Cage is set in that time period so I had to read it.

The Gilded Cage is a fun short read, normally novellas don’t really interest me since the characters never achieve their full potential in it but this novella got me pretty excited for the full novel.

Masie gets whisked away from boarding school in the middle of the night because of a family emergency.  Masie is the daughter of bootlegger Dutch Schultz but she doesn’t have a real place in the family since she’s females and what can they do in a world that revolves around smuggling alcohol and other illegal activities. The 1920’s what an exciting time but also a dangerous one and the novella portrays that really well.

The Gilded Cage is an introduction to the full novel so the direction that the story line will follow is still a bit vague and there is not much character development. But it definitely gets you interested in the remaining of the story. So I believe that it achieved its goal and I cannot wait until the full novel gets released.

Elien