Good morning. Please excuse the frightful mess—I rarely spill my tea so spectacularly. It’s just that hardly anyone ever asks about my life, perhaps because they’re likely to get only a raised chin and my best imperious glare. What they usually mean is, why am I not out looking lovely at a tedious ladies’ luncheon or idling away my hours (while looking lovely) at some smart gallery or salon? They expect me to live my life as an ornament, a bauble to entice or please a wealthy husband.
But this is 1925! I want to spend my hours doing something that matters. To me, that means publishing worthy books and making each copy a thing of beauty, entirely with my own two hands. I’ve established my own private press, which I call the Capriole Press. I am a young “kid” after all, as frolicsome as any of my four-legged caprine cousins.
A year ago I was happily living abroad in London when my older half brother, Philip, whom I barely knew, tried to usurp my inheritance. I was forced to return here to New York, where he nearly succeeded in taking both my money and the independence it gives me. My only hope was to accept his wager and prove that my friend’s sister, a quite remarkable suffragette, did not commit suicide, as her family insisted. In searching for the truth of the poor woman’s death, I also learned that even the most brave and brilliant woman is powerless without money of her own. An allowance is not the same! What good is the right to vote if your man won’t give you bus fare to get to the polls?
Philip and I sparred nose to nose, let me tell you. In the end, my pleasure in besting him was enough to lure me back to the city of my birth. Every day I look for a suitable home with room for my printing studio. Until then, my beloved maid, Christophine, and I are guests in Philip’s flat. I often encounter him in the library over evening cocktails, where we still infuriate and delight each other in equal measure. After so much wariness and downright aggravation, we’re both learning to trust—and even like—each other.
But my deepest happiness comes in my work as a publisher, however fledgling. I prowl parties and eavesdrop shamelessly, hoping to discover a young writer or artist whose work suits my special care. I’m learning who’s who in New York’s publishing world: which publishers, authors, and books are in hottest demand. I swear it’s as trendy as Paris fashions. Nowadays the latest thing in fiction moves with the heady new beat of Harlem after midnight. With dreams of fame and fortune at stake, that can lead to dangerous deceptions, heartbreaking injustice—and murder.
Passing Fancies is the second book in the “Julia Kydd” historical mystery series, released June 2, 2020.
Julia Kydd returns in a new mystery set in the beguiling world of the Harlem Renaissance, where reckless revelry leads to devastating crimes.
When stylish young bibliophile Julia Kydd returns to 1920s New York, she’s determined to launch her own private press. Julia’s aspirations take her into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement unlike any she’s known—where notions of race, sexuality, and power are slippery, and identities can be deceptively fluid.
At a risqué soiree, Julia befriends singer Eva Pruitt, whose new book is rumored to reveal lurid details about the Harlem nightlife. But Leonard Timson, a local nightclub owner, is furious when he suspects he’s the inspiration for a violent character in the book. By morning, Timson is dead, and both Eva and her manuscript are missing.
Julia finds herself immersed in a case as troubling as Jazz Age race relations. More questions than answers surface about Eva’s mysterious world, and powerful interests conspire to protect dangerous secrets. Still, no man can stand between Julia and the truth: appalled by violent injustice, she must use her wit and guile to find the killer.
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Meet the author
Marlowe Benn is the author of two Jazz Age mysteries featuring Julia Kydd. Her debut, Relative Fortunes, was named by CrimeReads as one of the best traditional mysteries of 2019. Her second novel, Passing Fancies, was published in June 2020, also by Lake Union Publishing. A book historian and letterpress printer, Benn lives with her husband on an island near Seattle. To learn more, visit her website at marlowebenn.com.
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