The Chaperone

On a summer's day in 1922 Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, leaving behind a marriage that's not as perfect as it seems and a past that she buried long ago. She is charged with the care of a stunning young girl with a jet-black fringe and eyes wild and wise beyond her fifteen years. This girl is hungry for stardom and Cora for something she doesn't yet know. Cora will be many things in her lifetime - an orphan, a mother, a wife, a mistress - but in New York she is a chaperone and her life is about to change.It is here under the bright lights of Broadway, in a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies with their forbidden whispers behind closed doors thrive, that Cora finds what she has been searching for. It is here, in a time when illicit thrills and daring glamour sizzle beneath the laws of propriety that her life truly begins. It is here that Cora and her charge, Louise Brooks, take their first steps towards their dreams.

“This is that rare, precious and fabulous thing - a proper story, with characters you care about desperately and root for right to the end . . . I can't recommend this novel highly enough. Moving, shocking, dramatic, clever, atmospheric, glamorous and satisfying. You'll adore it”

This is that rare, precious and fabulous thing - a proper story, with characters you care about desperately and root for right to the end . . . I can't recommend this novel highly enough. Moving, shocking, dramatic, clever, atmospheric, glamorous and satisfying. You'll adore it Daily Mail
A lovely novel, full of humanity Sunday Times
It's impossible not to be drawn in by The Chaperone. Laura Moriarty has delivered the richest and realest possible heroine in Cora Carlisle . . . What a beautiful book. I loved every page -- Paula McLain author of The Paris Wife
Enthralling . . . In this layered and inventive story, Moriarty raises profound questions about family, sexuality, history and whether it is luck or will - or a combination of the two - that makes for a wonderful life O Magazine
An evocative look at the early life of silent-film icon Louise Brooks . . . Mesmerizing Vogue
Surprising and poignant Entertainment Weekly
A fun romp Good Housekeeping
Devour it Marie Claire
First-rate fiction . . . sharp, with great empathy San Francisco Weekly

Laura Moriarty earned a degree in social work before returning for her M.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. She was the recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. She lives with her daughter in Lawrence, Kansas.

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