In Fiona Davis's The Lions of Fifth Avenue, we meet Laura, a wife and mother in 1913 whose family is living in the recently opened New York Public Library. We also meet her granddaughter, Sadie, eighty years later who is a curator at the same library. The two never met but Sadie is intrigued with her grandmother's reputation as a famous feminist essayist. When books begin going missing in Sadie's timeline, she is surprised to find that there were also book thefts at the time her grandmother and mother lived in the library. She dives headfirst into the mystery with the hope of rescuing some of the world's most important pieces of literature.
I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and I was very curious where the mystery would lead us. Davis did an excellent job balancing the two different timelines and points of view and each chapter ending had me wanting to keep the pages turning. I loved reading about turn-of-the-century feminism and the challenges that women of the time faced in their desires to pursue their own passions. I also enjoyed hearing about the NY Public Library and now it is on my list of places to visit. This was my first Fiona Davis novel, but I can't wait to read more!
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