Abandoned by Booklikes

I am starting to really like the "vintage" genre romance and chick-lit novels that are coming out lately. I think it's because most of the clothes, appliances, dishes, harkens back to an earlier time and people like imaging themselves as debutantes at a ball.

This novel focuses on three women who come into contact due to a vintage store, Hourglass Vintage, that is located in Madison, Wisconsin. These women are Violet, April, and Amithi.

Violet owns Hourglass Vintage, but due to an unexpected development by the owner of her building may found herself without a home or store in a few short months. April is 18 years old, pregnant, and alone. Dealing with the death of her mother a few months earlier and her fiancee breaking off her wedding, she interns at Violet's store. Amithi comes into Violet's store trying her best to give away clothes that she feels are tainted by her husband's betrayal.

I loved all three of these women as characters. However, Amithi's storyline really did not flow with the rest of the story lines in this novel. I think her storyline would have made a great standalone novel or a sequel to Vintage: A Novel. April and Violet's story lines are more closely entwined since they both are working at the store and becoming closer to each other. Amithi would drop in here and there but was not really involved with them at all. A side character, in this novel, Lane, was more interesting to me and actually would have fit in nicely with Violet and April's storyline. I found myself more interested in Lane since she seemed to have such a surreal life as an actress that had her giving that up to be a wife and mother.

I can't wait to see what Susan Gloss writes next.