I’ve just completed my first book of the new year, and thought I’d share a review with you because it’s so stellar. The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis is a best seller, and Good Morning America book club member. I was gifted this for Christmas because it combines a lot of my interests: mysteries, books, and history.

Let me first start with the book summary:

It’s 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn’t ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she is drawn to Greenwich Village’s new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women’s rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. But when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she’s forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process.

Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she’s wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie’s running begin disappearing from the library’s famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-averse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library’s history.

Yes, it’s a long summary, but i think it gives you better background than I’d be able to. Essentially, the book flip flops between two perspectives, that of a blossoming woman in 1913, and the struggles of a similar independent woman in 1993.

The book has highs, lows, history, and book thieves! It definitely held my interest. Between the romance, the personal growth and struggles, and the snippets of history and learning that were thrown in, I found it an engaging and swift read (because I could not put it down).

What I really liked were the themes of strong women coming to their own sense of empowerment through their life experiences. You know I’m a women’s college graduate, so that was going to resonate with me! Laura’s sections were my favorite, because we really got a first hand look at a woman making sense of her identity, career, and family in a time where this was so new. I love to read real histories about these kinds of women, but a fictional account was just as fulfilling for me.

I overall really enjoyed the book. I found myself more interested in the 1913 sections than the modern telling in 1993, and found Laura to be a much more dynamic character than Sadie. I think at times, Sadie’s world got a bit cliche, but nonetheless, was a well rounded, great book.

Overall, I’d highly suggest reading this book, especially if you’re interested in books, libraries, or the first wave feminist movement. What a fantastic read, and I am so grateful I received it as a gift!

All thoughts and opinions are my own.