"Dollface"

As clichéd as it sounds, Renée Rosen is a former advertising copywriter who always had a novel in her desk drawer. When she saw the chance to make the leap from writing ad copy to fiction, she jumped at it. A confirmed history and book nerd, the author loves all things old, all things Chicago and all things written.

Rosen applied the Page 69 Test to her new book, Dollface, A Novel of the Roaring Twenties, and reported the following:

So I took the test and honestly, I was kind of disappointed on where I landed. Not that I don’t love the scene of Vera and her mother at the lunch counter, but it’s just not representative of the book as a whole. The scene is absolutely necessary but page 69 doesn’t capture the spirit of Dollface, which is the story of flapper who falls in love with two mobsters from rival gangs during Prohibition Chicago. Other than “water closet” and “bloomers” you’d have no idea that this book is about gangsters and the Roaring Twenties. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean.

From Page 69:

A woman stepped out of the water closet and we noticed that she had accidentally tucked the back of her dress up inside her bloomers. I glanced over at the woman, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the expression on my mother’s face. I turned and looked at her. She was trying not to laugh, but her shoulders were shaking. That’s when I surrendered and started laughing, too.

Learn more about Dollface at Renée Rosen's website, blog, and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Dollface.

Writers Read: Renée Rosen.

--Marshal Zeringue