A female doctor in 1944 treats a wounded soldier in a New York City hospital. A young woman works as domestic staff for a rich family living in a resplendent mansion in 1892. A secretary at a law firm in 1920 searches for the truth about her paternity. What connects these women? Karen White (The Sound of Glass), Beatriz Williams (Along the Infinite Sea) and Lauren Willig (The Other Daughter) answer this question in their collaborative novel, The Forgotten Room.
Kate's patient is Captain Ravenel, whose leg she saves from amputation. But he looks at her with more than gratitude; it's as if he knows her from somewhere. Olive gets a job in the Pratt family household. She has an ulterior motive, but her vengeful plans are complicated when she catches one of the sons' attention. Lucy, defying her grandmother by getting an education and a job as a secretary, also has secret reasons for being at the law firm that employs her. Their stories, told in alternating chapters, share an exquisite ruby pendant and the titular room, which somehow connect them all.
White, Williams and Willig have pulled off an impressive feat: combining their voices seamlessly. Even if their respective fans think they know each author's style well, it's difficult to discern who wrote what. While the stories are engrossing and the narrators strong-willed women, a suspension of disbelief is needed because the arc of the novel depends on coincidence occurring more than once. Then again, maybe it's not coincidence, but fate. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd