*I was provided this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All words, ideas, and opinions in this review are my own.

There are many things I don’t like about the book. First being the happy ending the main character got even though she is one of the most awful people I’ve had the displeasure of reading about. She claims to have an open mind but the entire book is spent getting revenge at any cost. She hurts people in her path, including her lover, and her only two friends who don’t even know who she really is. In the end, she gets everything she wanted; the lover, her friendships, her relationship with her mother. It just bothers me that someone like her still gets what she thinks she deserves. The other things I don’t care for are the sex scenes, the way this book wasn’t at all about the Hope Diamond, and the way the main character used blackmail to get what she wanted even though blackmail was the reason for the entire book in the first place. Another thing that bothered me greatly was the way she talked about and treated men who didn’t like her. There were men in this book who did indeed harm women, but there were also men who were kind to women and respected them. Maybe it wasn’t just because she was a woman that they didn’t like her, it could have been that her personality was terrible and she was just being a bitch.

Character:
Vera Garland spends the entire book blaming others for her circumstances and then getting her "revenge" on those who have done her/her family wrong. She is probably the least likable main character I've ever read about.

World:
I was hoping to see life in the gilded age but there was not much background other than the author using fancy descriptions for things that I didn’t understand. While reading I forgot most of the time that it is a period novel. The only hints were mentions of tenement housing and child labor and the suffragette movement. Other than that it felt like reading a contemporary, which I abhor. The dialogue did not sound different from the way we speak now. Usually when I read a historical novel I’m pulled in by how different the world in the book is to the world I live in. This one covered all of the topics that are talked about today. It was like reading a contemporary staged in 1910 but then the author forgot that the book was set in 1910. You could have slapped a smartphone in the main character's hand and nothing about the story would have needed to change.

Plot:
The plot of this book was seriously lacking. I thought that the book would have more to do with the Hope Diamond and how it tied into the tragedy that the Garland family endures before the book even starts. Unfortunately, this book has almost nothing to do with the Hope Diamond and has a lot to do with the main character twisting the truth and blackmailing people to get what she thinks she deserves.

Writing Style:
There are too many terms I don’t understand. Mostly architectural terms that would have been common in the 1900s but mean absolutely nothing to me in 2020. These terms are probably the only thing about the actual words used that would have been commonplace in 1910. I also had the unpleasant experience of reading the word "spinster" about 5 times more than necessary. The main character is 32 years old. That is not a spinster. A spinster is like 50. Past childbearing age. 32 is not a spinster.

Enjoyment:
I absolutely did not enjoy this book. There was not one thing in this book that I enjoyed and I don't recommend this book for anyone to read.

Rating: I gave Cartier's Hope 1.4/5 stars based on my personal rating system. ( )

Vera Garland would be the envy of most New York women in 1910. Born to a socialite mother and a merchant father whose retail emporium is a household word, Vera has never wanted for any material possession. Nor would she lack the leisure to enjoy them, should she choose. But she doesn’t; she dreams of making her mark in journalism.

To that end, she writes a society gossip column in her gilded-set voice, while, as Vee Swann, she reports on back-alley abortions, tenement life, and corporate malfeasance. She’s got no time or interest in her mother’s plans for her, to wit, a wealthy husband and a career in society. The conflict splits the family, but Vera gets to do what she wants.

Maintaining Vera’s two different personae takes a great deal of sweat (and a little credulity on her friends’ parts, not to mention the reader’s). But it makes a great story, and getting trapped in one identity while needing to be in the other, though an old device, offers excellent possibilities, which Rose ably exploits.

Vera wants revenge against the extortionist who brought about her uncle’s and father’s deaths within a week of each other. And the key to her scheme lies within Cartier’s, the world-class jewelers whose premises she may visit with ceremony and complimentary champagne as Vera Garland, but where, as Vee Swann, she’d never expect an audience.

Her plan has to do with the Hope Diamond, whose lore of danger and ill fortune to its succession of owners furnishes grist for Pierre Cartier’s publicity mill. How that dovetails with bringing down an extortionist, I leave for you to discover.

Plot is by far the strongest aspect of Cartier’s Hope and just about the only reason to read the novel. It’s a good reason, though. In the interest of full disclosure, my taste runs toward character-driven narratives, because some plot-driven novels pay little or no attention to subtlety. So too here, in ways I’ll discuss further down.

Yet I have to admire how Rose strings out the story, layering twist after twist, making her protagonist work, so that nothing comes easily, and the reversals feel genuine. Rose also keeps you guessing without tricking you. She’s a generous writer that way; if anyone falls for a misperception or misdirection, it’s Vera/Vee.

The plain prose never draws attention to itself, and Rose limits her descriptions largely to interiors, with sparse, thoughtful detail. The author loves New York, and it shows in the locales portrayed as they were, whether tenements, newsrooms, or the Plaza Hotel. I trust her research in general, though I did find one anachronism: Traffic lights didn’t exist back then.

More troublesome are the language and the characters, who speak and think like latter twentieth-century folk, or even those of the present day. I don’t just mean words or phrases like accessorize or reach out to, but the manner in which people discuss their ideas. Vee and her journalist friends, passionate about women’s rights, seem like retro creations, modern sensibilities and worldviews dropped into 1910. It doesn’t help that some of these scenes feel like information dumps.

But it’s not just the political or social milieu that strikes me wrong. Vera’s father sounds like a gifted psychotherapist as well as a brilliant retailer, a wonderfully thoughtful, considerate man. He's made one mistake, a whopper, but seems perfect otherwise. Ditto Vera’s love interest, who could be a midcentury intellectual. He’s done one bad thing too, but there are mitigating circumstances, to be sure. These people are too good to be true.

Rose often explains what a character’s trying to do or has just done when it’s obvious. That authorial hand not only feels condescending, as if the reader can’t be trusted to get the idea, but prompts you to wonder what other manipulations are taking place.
Still, Cartier’s Hope offers that intriguing plot, with legends about jewels thrown in. If that’s your style, you could do a lot worse. ( )

I am such a fan of M.J. Rose's books and this is quite possibly one of her best. A true delight of a book. I was pulled in from page one and did not want to stop until The End. Great cast of characters and setting. A true delight of a book. Definitely 5 stars for this one. ( )

More like 31/2 stars ( )

The story of the Hope Diamond, women journalists, hidden identities, locked bookcases, and family secrets greet the reader of Cartier’s Hope.

Vera was the daughter of a wealthy businessman, but she needed to hide this fact so she could work at being a journalist for the stories women were assigned, and according to her mother to not disgrace the family’s name because she didn’t comply with social norms of being a married woman and a wealthy woman who didn't work.

Vera was always looking for a story. The Hope Diamond would be a perfect one. What intrigued Vera was when she heard its background and its supposed curse.

Even more interesting than the Hope Diamond and what peaked her curiosity was when she found locked bookcases in her father's library and had no idea why her father would have locked books inside.

Mystery about the bookcase and the intrigue about the Hope Diamond kept Vera's journalistic mind going. Vera had been in a slump and didn't want to write any more, but after she found out why her father had books hidden behind books, the Hope Diamond story took second place but was going to help her with her father's secret. This made her realize it was time to get back to her life's work and find out why and who was behind her father's story and how to use the Hope Diamond to aid with the search for answers.

Ms. Rose made the reader aware of the challenges female journalists faced and what they had to put up with in the male-dominated profession. The female journalists had to put up with the worst stories, lower pay than their male counterparts, sexual favors if they wanted their name on a story, and not being treated the same or looked at for being as good as a male journalist.

M. J. Rose has a writing style that pulls you in along with her marvelous details and research.

Historical fiction fans will enjoy CARTIER'S HOPE as well as mystery fans and those readers who enjoy strong female characters.

And...there can't be an absence of some romance with all those gorgeous jewels, right?

ENJOY when you read CARTIER’S HOPE. It is an all-around "gem" of a read. 5/5

This book was given to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )