"A gem of a story" (Laura Moriarty) about the famed Barbizon Hotel in which three spirited young women form an unlikely friendship and come of age in 1955 New York. For a small-town girl with big-city dreams, there is no address more glamorous than New York’s Barbizon Hotel. Laura, a patrician beauty from Smith, arrives to work at Mademoiselle for the summer. Her hopelessly romantic roommate, Dolly, comes from a working-class upstate town to attend secretarial school. And then there's Vivian, a brash British bombshell with a disregard for the hotel’s rules. Together, the girls embark on a journey of discovery that will take them from the penthouse apartments of Park Avenue to the Beat scene of Greenwich Village to Atlantic City’s Steel Pier??—??and into the arms of very different men who will alter their lives forever.

In 1955 New York three spirited young women living at the famed Barbizon Hotel form an unlikely friendship and come of age in the glamorous post-war city that could make--or break--them.

"A daughter's ... search to understand her mother, Carolyn Scott--once a bridesmaid to Princess Grace and one of the first Ford models--who later in life spent years living in a homeless shelter ... How had the seemingly confident, glamorous woman ... become the mother she knew growing up--the mother who was now living in a shelter? In this ... memoir of friendship and motherhood, Nyna Giles uncovers her mother's past to answer the questions she never knew to ask"--

For a small-town girl with big dreams in 1955, there is no address more desirable than New York's Barbizon Hotel - the place where Grace Kelly lived when she first came to the big city. Laura is an aristocratic beauty from Connecticut who arrives with a magazine internship and dreams of becoming a writer Dolly is a hopeless romantic working the secretarial pool and looking to be swept off her feet Vivian is a red-headed British bombshell who yearns to make it as a singer while working nights as a cigarette girl Perfect for fans of Mad Men, The Best of Everything and The Paris Wife, this is a novel filled to the brim with glamour, following the lives of three women as they are lured into the exhilarating, dazzling world of New York City and embark on a journey that will alter their lives for ever.

Drawing on his unprecedented access to Grace Kelly, bestselling biographer Donald Spoto at last offers an intimate, honest, and authoritative portrait of one of Hollywood’s legendary actresses. In just seven years–from 1950 through 1956–Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of To Catch a Thief, Grace established herself as one of Hollywood’s most talented actresses and iconic beauties. Her astonishing career lasted until her retirement at age twenty-six, when she withdrew from stage and screen to marry a European monarch and became a modern, working princess and mother. Based on never-before-published or quoted interviews with Grace and those conducted over many years with her friends and colleagues–from costars James Stewart and Cary Grant to director Alfred Hitchcock–as well as many documents disclosed by her children for the first time, acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto explores the transformation of a convent schoolgirl to New York model, successful television actress, Oscar-winning movie star, and beloved royal. As the princess requested, Spoto waited twenty-five years after her death to write this biography. Now, with honesty and insight, High Society reveals the truth of Grace Kelly’s personal life, the men she loved, the men she didn’t, and what lay behind the façade of her fairy-tale life.