not an overly deep book for a book club but a decent read.
When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren't: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn't belong—a notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she's introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that's used there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance.

Over half a century later, the Barbizon's gone condo and most of its long-ago guests are forgotten. But rumors of Darby's involvement in a deadly skirmish with a hotel maid back in 1952 haunt the halls of the building as surely as the melancholy music that floats from the elderly woman's rent-controlled apartment. It's a combination too intoxicating for journalist Rose Lewin, Darby's upstairs neighbor, to resist—not to mention the perfect distraction from her own imploding personal life. Yet as Rose's obsession deepens, the ethics of her investigation become increasingly murky, and neither woman will remain unchanged when the shocking truth is finally revealed.

called the Dollhouse by the boys -- this was the authors first novel and a decent read. Its a fast read, and not overly deep . but an interesting story , especially the insight inot what the Barbizon must have been like in the 50/s. entertaining and worth the read.

The timeline goes back and forth between the 1950’s, when the Barbizon Hotel was a Women’s only hotel, and 2016 when Rose, a tenant and writer, decides to write an article about the hotel’s past as well as some of the residents who still reside there.
It is an interesting story, with several twists and turns and an ending I didn’t expect.