From the New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue comes the compelling
national bestselling novel about the thin lines between love and loss success and ruin
passion and madness all hidden behind the walls of The Dakota New York City s most famous
residence. When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden one of the architects of the grand New
York apartment house the Dakota leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe her world is suddenly
awash in possibility no mean feat for a servant in 1884. The opportunity to move to America.
The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota. And the opportunity to see more of Theo
who understands Sara like no one else...and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three
young children. One hundred years later Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities:
Fresh out of rehab the former interior designer is homeless jobless and penniless. Bailey's
grandfather was the ward of famed architect Theodore Camden yet Bailey won't see a dime of the
Camden family's substantial estate instead her cousin Melinda Camden's biological
great-granddaughter will inherit almost everything. So when Melinda offers to let Bailey
oversee the renovation of her lavish Dakota apartment Bailey jumps at the chance despite her
dislike of Melinda's vision. The renovation will take away all the character of the apartment
Theodore Camden himself lived in...and died in after suffering multiple stab wounds by a
former Dakota employee who had previously spent seven months in an insane asylum a madwoman
named Sara Smythe. A century apart Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle against
the golden excess of their respective ages--for Sara the opulence of a world ruled by the
Astors and Vanderbilts for Bailey the nightlife's free-flowing drinks and cocaine and take
refuge in the Upper West Side's gilded fortress. But a building with a history as rich and
often as tragic as the Dakota's can't hold its secrets forever and what Bailey discovers
inside could turn everything she thought she knew about Theodore Camden and the woman who
killed him on its head.
