From Amazon:
It's 1950 and the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie Moraine wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street.
Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.
Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.
With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.
At last! I book a girl can fall in love with! I was beginning to think it was me- every book I've attempted to read lately felt more like a chore. I was starting to worry.
Out of the Easy had me hooked from page one. Ruta Septys paints an amazingly colorful story of 1950's New Orleans. Josie grabs the reader's heart from the get go. Tough and street wise, yet vulnerable, her story leaves the reader unable to put this book down. With a self absorbed prostitute for a mother, Josie must raise herself. She finds solace and a sense of family in a local used bookshop. When the owner, a local author, discovers that Josie sleeps in his shop at night, he gives her a place to stay. Josie dreams of escaping New Orleans and going to college, but will she ever be able to outrun her past?
I LOVE Septy's writing style- no endless boring descriptions and blah blah to skip over! Septys can say in 5 words what other authors would take an entire page (or more) to express. This is an great southern novel.
Read this book if....
*you love southern fiction
*you love stories that take place in New Orleans, LA
*you love historical fiction
