New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble wows with a gripping historical novel about the real-life “Tiffany Girls,” a fascinating and largely unknown group of women artists behind Tiffany’s most legendary glassworks.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Shelley Noble’s The Tiffany Girls, which is out May 9th!
It’s 1899, and Manhattan is abuzz. Louis Comfort Tiffany, famous for his stained-glass windows, is planning a unique installation at the Paris World’s Fair, the largest in history. At their fifth-floor studio on Fourth Avenue, the artists of the Women’s Division of the Tiffany Glass Company are already working longer shifts to finish the pieces that Tiffany hopes will prove that he is the world’s finest artist in glass. Known as the “Tiffany Girls,” these women are responsible for much of the design and construction of Tiffany’s extraordinary glassworks, but none receive credit.
Emilie Pascal, daughter of an art forger, has been shunned in Paris art circles after the unmasking of her abusive father. Wanting nothing more than a chance to start a new life, she forges a letter of recommendation in hopes of fulfilling her destiny as an artist in the one place where she will finally be free to live her own life.
Grace Griffith is the best copyist in the studio, spending her days cutting glass into floral borders for Tiffany’s religious stained-glass windows. But none of her coworkers know her secret: she is living a double life as a political cartoonist under the pseudonym of G.L. Griffith—hiding her identity as a woman.
As manager of the women’s division, Clara Driscoll is responsible for keeping everything on schedule and within budget. But in the lead-up to the most important exhibition of her career, not only are her girls becoming increasingly difficult to wrangle, she finds herself obsessed with a new design: a dragonfly lamp that she has no idea will one day become Tiffany’s signature piece.
Chapter 1
July 1899 Montmartre Paris
Emilie Pascal wipes her hands on the cleanest cloth she can find and carefully places the sheet of stationery on the desktop. It is her last one. She had managed to secrete two sheets from the d’Evereux writing desk this past fall when her father was finishing the chevalier’s portrait.
She’d already had to use one. This one will be for her.
She aligns the sheet just so, pulls the inkwell closer. Takes a breath and slowly touches her cheek. The bruise will be gone before she arrives in New York with her letter.
But she must hurry.
She must also be very precise, something that she has learned over the years. One mistake could cost her everything.
Emilie pictures the letter she will write in her head, like a scene on a canvas before she begins to paint. A florid, but masculine script. Just enough explanation, not too much praise. She touches the pen’s tip to the page.
My Dear Mr. Tiffany . . .
The pounding on the door comes just as she is about to sign her near perfect forgery. She lifts the pen instinctually from the paper and, Dieu merci, it does not blotch the paper.
Carefully now . . .
Mes sincères salutations, Le Chevalier d’Evereux
The door begins to shake under the increasing pounding. She has no blotter. Emilie blows on the signature, then folds the paper. She will not seal it with a wafer. Too much or too little is the one slip that will always give you away.
She stands and hurries to her bed and the black portfolio that awaits its last work of art.
Now the shouting begins. “Dominique Andre Pascal! Open the door in the name of the Sûreté de Paris!”
Emilie slips the letter into the portfolio.
The door will give soon. They won’t find him here. He is gone. She doesn’t know where, but good riddance. She throws a cloak over her shoulders and grabs her portfolio from the bed. One quick look about to make certain she has left nothing, and she races to the window.
She has planned for this moment. It seems her whole life she has planned for this moment. The window is open, and she slides her most precious possession onto the little balcony. Hoists her skirts, dark in color but light in weight, for her escape. One leg over the sill, then the other. She pulls the window closed just as the door gives.
She scoops up the black case, throws it onto the next balcony, and throws herself after it.
Jean and Marie are waiting to help her inside. They have heard the gendarmes in the hallway. Without a word, Marie helps Emilie into her cloak; they lead her over to the ladder to the roof, and she climbs up, gripping the handle of her portfolio as if it will sustain her in everything. And it will.
Jean wants to see her safely away, but Emilie shakes her head. “Non, tu dois m’oublier.”
“Mais je t’aime.” “Non.”
Marie hands up the valise they have been keeping for this moment. “We’ll send your trunk when you’re settled.”
Emilie nods. She cannot speak.
Marie begins to cry. Jean snaps a warning look. Marie wipes her tears in case the gendarmes come to question them about their neighbors.
Emilie looks out only long enough to make sure she is alone, then she climbs onto the rooftop.
Jean looks longingly up through the square opening. This is the way she will remember him. Framed in light.
Then the darkness closes over him, and Emilie is off over the rooftops of Paris.
She has only one last stop to make on her way to the docks and the ship that will take her far away from here. From her memories, good and bad, her friends and her enemies, and most of all from her father.
She climbs down to the rue Suger. The lights shine on silent cobblestones; no one is about. She hears no sound of searching police.
Clutching her belongings, she starts north toward the river. It is a hot night even for July and Emilie is slick with perspiration from her exertions and her fear. And she still has a distance before her.
Already the shadows of men and women appear in doorways, workers on their way to the factory, the river boats, the sewing shops, the flower market, where they will sell their wares to the few souls who will venture out in this weather.
Emilie walks faster, though her whole body fights her. She wants to sit down, to hide her face in her hands, but that will come soon enough.
And then she sees her, the little flower seller at the foot of the Pont des Arts.
The woman sees Emilie approach and grins her crooked smile. They are old acquaintances. She looks over her bucket of chrysanthemums, lilacs, and daisies and pulls out a long-stemmed rose from their midst. Emilie can see in the first rays of light that today it is red, a perfect symbol for parting.
Emilie drops a coin in the woman’s palm and takes the rose.
She doesn’t even know the flower seller’s name.
She moves on measured steps to the crest of the bridge. Slows while two men, late from carousing the night away, pass her in their hurry home. Then she turns to look down at the deep waters of the Seine. She will not cry.
“I leave France tonight, Maman. I may not visit you for a long while. ‘Ne m’oublie pas.’” And she drops the rose into the darkness.
From THE TIFFANY GIRLS by Shelley Noble. Copyright © 2023 by Shelley Noble. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
