The Necklace, the new novel by Claire McMillan is spectacular! It is set for release next month and it will not disappoint. I would love to see it on the NYT bestsellers list! I seriously didn’t want to put it down. I would call it a split times novel of family revelations and struggle in finding your place in history.The two brothers, Ambrose and Ethan, who live in the “dry” 1920’s love the same woman. She is a jazzy party princess and lives for the social life. Her name is May and she is independent and stubborn to a fault. After marrying the wrong brother, she receives a necklace as a wedding gift. The necklace becomes a wedge between the once tight-bonded brothers. Skip to present day and Nell inherits the necklace from her great-aunt Lou. Lou is the stingy, old money, moth ball smelling woman who raised Nell’s mom. Lou is also the only other sibling of the two brothers. Nell is a successful lawyer who handles Lou’s estate after her death. Nell has to dive into her family’s hush-hush history to discover why she would want a dusty old costume piece that nobody seems to know about. Add Lou’s sexy estate lawyer Louis to the mix to complicate and confuse matters for Nell.

I loved this book because it had romantic tones to it but it also highlighted the strengths of the underlying matriarchal figures in the family. The women are the heroines but also their own worst enemies, doubting the strength they have to change their own futures. How do you follow your heart and stay true to those you love while crushing them? May finds that to follow her destiny she must break invisible chains of loyalty and lies. History repeats instead for Nell as the necklace threatens to tear apart the few family she has left. The chapters bounce between the past and present to weave a tense love and loss tale of the two women that will leave you begging for more. Read it for yourself to discover the bond that holds May and Nell to one another and how they are both saved by the mysterious necklace.

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