For fans of Christina Baker Kline and Fiona Davis, a coming-of-age story about a young woman discovering love, loss, and the power of her own creativity in World War II San Francisco.San Francisco in 1944 is a bustling place, a revolving door of soldiers and sailors passing through on their way to the war in the Pacific. Twenty-year-old Irene Cleary, however, is not going anywhere. Although she'd love to travel, the seamstress shop she inherited from her mentor keeps her firmly rooted in the only city she's ever known. She pours her energy into dressmaking and volunteers for the war effort by dancing with servicemen at the USO. But Irene's life is transformed when she designs a gown for Cynthia Burke, the socialite whose new marriage to Max, a handsome Chicago businessman, is the talk of the Nob Hill elite. As Irene is drawn into the Burkes' glamorous, troubled orbit, and as she becomes absorbed in making costumes for the first American performance of a ballet...

Set on a lavish California estate, The Seeing Garden is "a moving story with strong female characters" (Kirkus Reviews) for fans of Edith Wharton and Downton Abbey.It's 1910, and Catherine Ogden is aching to live a creative and meaningful life. That's not easy to do when her aunt and uncle—and all of New York society—consider a good marriage to be the pinnacle of feminine achievement. But when Catherine visits Oakview, the Northern California estate of handsome bachelor William Brandt, she thinks that it might be possible to satisfy her family's hopes as well as her own. In that beautiful place, she finds the promise of a new start and the opportunity to use her artistic gifts in designing the garden. But as Catherine is drawn into William's hidden life, as well as the secrets of his estate staff, she discovers that Oakview holds both more opportunity and more risk than she ever imagined. It will take all her courage—and the...