The Beautiful American, Jeanne Mackin
The Beautiful American, Jeanne Mackin
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The Beautiful American

Author: Jeanne Mackin

Narrator: Kate Reading

Unabridged: 11 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/03/2014


Synopsis

From Paris in the 1920s to London after the Blitz, two women find that a secret from their past reverberates through years of joy and sorrow.As recovery from World War II begins, expatriate American Nora Tours travels from her home in southern France to London in search of her missing sixteen-year-old daughter. There she unexpectedly meets up with an old acquaintance, famous model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. Neither has emerged from the war unscathed. Nora is racked with the fear that her efforts to survive under the Vichy regime may have cost her daughter's life. Lee suffers from what she witnessed as a war correspondent photographing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.Nora and Lee knew each other in the heady days of late 1920s Paris, when Nora was giddy with love for her childhood sweetheart, Lee became the celebrated mistress of the artist Man Ray, and Lee's magnetic beauty drew them all into the glamorous lives of famous artists and their wealthy patrons. But Lee fails to realize that her friendship with Nora is even older, that it goes back to their days as children in Poughkeepsie, New York, when a devastating trauma marked Lee forever. Will Nora's reunion with Lee give them a chance to forgive past betrayals and break years of silence to forge a meaningful connection as women who have shared the best and the worst that life can offer?A novel of freedom and frailty, desire and daring, The Beautiful American portrays the extraordinary relationship between two passionate, unconventional women.

About Jeanne Mackin

Jeanne Mackin teaches creative writing at Goddard College in Vermont and has taught or conducted workshops in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and New York. She lives with her husband, artist Steve Poleskie, in upstate New York. She is the author of several novels, including The Sweet By and By, Dreams of Empire, The Queen’s War, and The Frenchwoman.

About Kate Reading

Kate Reading, named an AudioFile Golden Voice, has recorded hundreds of audiobooks across many genres, over a thirty–year plus career and won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration. Among other awards, she has been recognized as an AudioFile Magazine Voice of the Century, Narrator of the Year, Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and winner of an Publisher’s Weekly’s Listen-Up Award. She records at her home studio, Madison Productions, Inc., in Maryland.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenda on June 06, 2014

This was a Goodreads ARC win for me ... thank you very much. I have been putting off reading this book because I wasn't sure I would like it ... boy, was I wrong. This is an historical novel about two girls who grew up in the late 1920's, matured to young women in the 1930's, withstood the war and a......more

Goodreads review by Renée on May 21, 2014

I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy of this wonderful novel and I LOVED every word. MacKin takes you into the ex-pat world of many famous and fictional artists during the 20s in Paris and beyond, including the Blitz in London. Its a beautiful, touching story that's compulsively readable.......more

Goodreads review by Meg - A Bookish Affair on September 23, 2015

"The Beautiful American" is the story of Nora, an American girl that follows her sweetheart overseas to Paris during the Roaring 20s. It's there that she meets up with her childhood friend, Lee Miller. Before reading this book I had heard of Lee Miller but I didn't really know too much about her. Le......more

Goodreads review by msleighm on April 10, 2014

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. 3.5/5 stars, rounded up I read this book in one day. It was like a good meal that should be filling but leaves you hungry. The story and the characters have a great skeleton; there is no meat on the bone. Overnight I pondered how it could hav......more

Goodreads review by Kristy on April 28, 2015

Nora runs into Lee Miller in the door of Harrods while she is searching for her missing 16 year old daughter after WWII, and is invited to Lee's house for a weekend party. With that set as the frame we flash back to their childhoods, when Nora, the gardener's daughter, was playmate to the wild young......more


Quotes

The Beautiful American, which readers will rank right up there with The Paris Wife, takes readers from the giddiness of the flapper era to the grittiness of World War II. It is a brilliant, beautifully written literary masterpiece. I love this book!” Sandra Dallas, New York Times bestselling author

“Mackin fictionalizes the lives of photographic artists Man Ray and his mistress, Lee Miller. The setting is fascinating, the real and fictional characters intriguing, and the story appealing. What will hold readers’ interest is the mystery of a missing daughter and the intersection of two very different women’s lives. Mackin builds a gripping plot.” RT Book Reviews (4 stars)

“An exquisitely imagined and beautifully rendered story of the talented, tragic, gorgeous Lee Miller.” Becky E. Conekin, author of Lee Miller in Fashion

“Jeanne Mackin blends a tale as intoxicating as the finest fragrance. Spanning wars both personal and global, A Beautiful American leaves its essence of love, loss, regret, and hope long after the novel concludes.” Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Fallen Beauty