Amber Brock focuses on British literature and creative writing. Her work often delves into the depths of the human psyche, exploring complex interpersonal relationships with keen insight. Brock skillfully employs rich language and evocative imagery to craft immersive reading experiences that leave readers contemplating long after the final page.
Set in the glamorous 1920s, this is an intoxicating debut that sweeps readers into a privileged Manhattan socialite's restless life and the affair with a mysterious painter that upends her world. Vera Bellington has beauty, pedigree, and a penthouse at The Angelus. Emil Hallan arrives at The Angelus to paint a mural above its glittering subterranean pool. The handsome French artist shrouds his work in secrecy, and piques Vera's curiosity. When the dangerous mysteries of Emil's past are revealed, Vera faces an impossible choice, whether to cling to her familiar world of privilege and propriety or to risk her future with the enigmatic man who has taken her heart
In 1950s New York, Kitty Tessler, the mischievous, status-obsessed daughter of a hotel magnate, schemes against her father's plans for her future when she falls for a musician and follows him to Miami and Havana. Kitty Tessler is the winsome and clever only child of self-made hotel and nightclub tycoon Nicolas Tessler. Kitty sees herself as every inch the socialite - spending her days perfecting her "look" and her nights charming all the blue-blooded boys who frequent her father's clubs. It seems like the fun will never end until Kitty's father issues a terrible ultimatum: she may no longer date the idle rich. Instead, Kitty must marry Andre, her father's second-in-command, and take her place as the First Lady of his hotel empire. Kitty is forced to come up with a wily and elaborate plan to protect her own lofty ideas for the future, as well as to save her best friend, Henrietta Bancroft, from a doomed engagement; Kitty will steal Henrietta's fiance, a fabulously wealthy but terribly unkind man from a powerful family - thereby delivering the one-two punch of securing her now-fragile place on the social ladder and keeping her friend from a miserable marriage. Then Kitty meets Max, a member of a band visiting New York from her father's Miami club, and her plans take a turn. Smitten, but still eager to convince her father of her commitment to Andre, Kitty and Hen follow Max, Andre, and the rest of the band back down to Miami - and later to Cuba. As Kitty spends more time with Max, she begins waking up to the beauty - and the injustice - of the world beyond her small, privileged corner of Manhattan. And when her well-intended yet manipulative efforts backfire, Kitty is forced to reconsider her choices and her future before she loses everyone she loves
