Beginning in 1875 and spanning several decades, The It Girls by Karen Harper is a fictionalized novel about real life sisters, Lucy (Lucile) & Elinor (Nellie) Sutherland.

Rising from humble beginnings, Lucy and Elinor's professional lives took divergent paths, but their personal lives bear startling similarities. Both women are rather impetuous and neither of them make the best decisions regarding the men in their lives. Each of their marriages are somewhat disastrous and they both embark on somewhat scandalous love affairs. Lucy's love of fashion results in a lucrative career as a designer while Elinor goes on to enjoy success as an author even though her books are rather risqué. Lucy survives the sinking of the Titantic and later goes on to face a few legal challenges regarding her fashion designs. In addition to her novels, Elinor pens a few screenplays and mingles with some the famous actors of the silent film era.

Despite the sisters' fascinating accomplishments, The It Girls is rather slow moving and a little choppy since the novel covers several decades of their lives. The characterization of the women is a little superficial and despite their very different interests, they lack individuality on paper. While the story is not without flaws, Karen Harper effectively brings attention to two successful women who were very much ahead their time. ( )

For someone who's written so many novels, you'd think Karen Harper would be better at it.

The lives of the Sutherland sisters are interesting, but honestly you'd be better served just reading their Wikipedia pages and being done with it. You'd certainly have a better idea of when and where events took place, since this book leaps around all over the place. A chapter might end and the next one take off two minutes later; or a page break might signify a gap of a couple of years.

The book infodumps all over the place, and in the worst way: by having the characters work the information into their conversations. The result is that every character has the same stilted, unnatural voice, and the sisters argue in practically all their interactions. I'm still not sure if they were meant to be at each other's throats all the time, or if it was just because of the author using them as mouthpieces to dispense information.

Potentially interesting scenes (such as Lucile's first fashion show) are cut short. We hear a lot about how divorce would harm Lucile's business prospects... but then a chapter later she's apparently divorced and nothing more has been said about it. Elinor is kidnapped (maybe?) in Warsaw, but with no suggestion as to why or who might responsible.

It seems Harper did a lot of research for this novel, but I can't say I'm impressed with her efforts to turn historical fact into "fiction". The worst part is that now I've seen her bibliography all her other works sound interesting, and I know that at some point I'll convince myself to give her another chance despite this mediocre effort. ( )

Historical fiction about two sisters who were It Girls in their day.

Lucile Duff Gordon survived the sinking of the Titanic. This happened in the middle of this book. So, just picture what an exciting life Lucile led.
She was a self made woman,a very famous fashion designer.

Her younger sister, Elinor, was a famous romance novelist.

Very entertaining story.
I'm not going to go into any more detail because I don't want to risk any spoilers of their stories. ( )

Another great historical fiction book! It is amazing that this is the lives they led. Although I wish there would have been more emphasis put into the sinking of the Titanic. The fact that she was a survivor of that terrible tragedy and yet she still sailed on ships after! ( )

The it girls by Karen Harper
Like how the girls have found different careers: fashion designer and one a novelist.
Starts out as young girls and they are moved to Canada from England. Because of their fathers health problem they end up back in England as they are growing into young ladies, attending balls and coming out parties.
Like hearing of the differences between the two and mostly the historic events that occur during their lifetimes and how that changes things.
Paying off a boat owner as they rescue you from the sinking of the Titanic but it's not as it seems. Betrayal and how it effects each of them.
Loved hearing of all the travel, the fashion design and writing businesses over the years. Good read
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device). ( )