Review: The Wicked City by Beatriz Williams

Title: The Wicked City

Author: Beatriz Williams

Series: The Wicked City, #1

Published: January 2017, William Morrow

Format: ARC Paperback, 384 pages

Source: Publisher

Summary: 

New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams recreates the New York City of A Certain Age in this deliciously spicy adventure that mixes past and present and centers on a Jazz Age love triangle involving a rugged  Prohibition agent, a saucy redheaded flapper, and a debonair Princetonian from a wealthy family.

When she discovers her husband cheating, Ella Hawthorne impulsively moves out of their SoHo loft and into a small apartment in an old Greenwich Village building. Her surprisingly attractive new neighbor, Hector, warns her to stay out of the basement at night. Tenants have reported strange noises after midnight—laughter, clinking glasses, jazz piano—even though the space has been empty for decades. Back in the Roaring Twenties, the place hid a speakeasy.

In 1924, Geneva “Gin” Kelly, a smart-mouthed flapper from the hills of western Maryland, is a regular at this Village hideaway known as the Christopher Club. Caught up in a raid, Gin becomes entangled with Prohibition enforcement agent Oliver Anson, who persuades her to help him catch her stepfather Duke Kelly, one of Appalachia’s most notorious bootleggers.

Headstrong and independent, Gin is no weak-kneed fool. So how can she be falling in love with the taciturn, straight-arrow Revenue agent when she’s got Princeton boy Billy Marshall, the dashing son of society doyenne Theresa Marshall, begging to make an honest woman of her? While anything goes in the Roaring Twenties, Gin’s adventures will shake proper Manhattan society to its foundations, exposing secrets that shock even this free-spirited redhead—secrets that will echo from Park Avenue to the hollers of her Southern hometown.

As Ella discovers more about the basement speakeasy, she becomes inspired by the spirit of her exuberant predecessor, and decides to live with abandon in the wicked city too. . . .

 

My thoughts: I first read this book when it first came out in 2017 and loved it. But with the second book in the series – The Wicked Redhead – finally being released this month, I decided I needed to reread this first book to familiarize myself with the story and the characters and I’m so glad I did. In fact I think I loved the book even more the second time around, if that’s possible.

Beatriz Williams has such a way of creating these multi-dimensional characters that you cannot help but fall in love with and want to know everything about and even with the dual narrative, you find yourself completely invested in both time-lines, wanting to stay with both characters even though you have to switch back and forth. And I just love how Beatriz manages to weave in characters from previous books…never doubt someone from another book is going to show up again. It doesn’t have to be a main character…all characters have a special place in Beatriz’s heart and somehow they all end up coming to the page again and I love that.

I’m glad I reread this one before starting The Wicked Redhead – it really got me in the right mindset to start that book and I’ll be sharing that review tomorrow. If you’ve never read anything by Beatriz Williams, I highly suggest picking up one of her books – I so love nothing more than getting lost in one of her books – I’ve read them all but one and have that one sitting on my shelf just waiting to be read.

My original review of THE WICKED CITY can be found here.

 

Books in this series:

1. The Wicked City
2. The Wicked Redhead