10 Little-Known Facts About Me

I'm taking a fun challenge posed by my author to tell you 10 things about myself. Even though she wrote a whole novel about me (revealing some of my most cringe-worthy moments, naturally), there are some other things you might be interested to know. Some of them made it into You're the Cream in My Coffee, and some didn't.

Me as a nursing student. 

1. In an early version of the novel, I was a nursing student instead of a clerk at Marshall Field & Co. From my point of view, the nursing profession was interesting, but I didn't fare all that well around blood (in the photo at left, I look like I'm posing winsomely, but I'm actually holding myself up lest I faint). Plus, Field's offers a clothing discount. So that was a change I could live with.

2. I met my boyfriend Richard one day when my sister Helen fell while roller-skating and cut her lip. He was the doctor on call at Kerryville General. Helen got stitches, and I got a date.

3. When I was a girl, I had a huge crush on my older brother's best friend, Jack, and he liked me back. I never really got over it when he was killed in the Great War.

4. My stepmother, Frances, and I don't always get along. But I must admit, she makes the best caramel cake in town.

Frances's caramel cake--yum!

5. Sometimes when my roommate, Dot, is at work, I try on her hats. She has dozens, which makes sense, since she works in the Millinery department at Field's. I'd try on her evening gowns, too, but unfortunately I can't squeeze into them.
6. When I was growing up, two of my sewing projects won blue ribbons in the county fair. I used to dream about becoming a great dress designer like Coco Chanel.
7. Unlike Dot, who moonlights as a cabaret singer, I can't carry a tune in a bucket.
8. Helen is dying to get her hair bobbed in the latest fashion, but Frances is making her wait. Outwardly I support Helen, but secretly I hope she keeps her blond braids for as long as possible. I will miss them when they go.
9. When things are slow in Ladies' Nightwear, I sometimes read magazines in the stockroom. One time when Mrs. Cross caught me perusing a copy of Photoplay, I told her I was researching fashion trends of movie

Lupe Velez. Lounging pajamas.

stars. This was a stretch, but there was one photo of Lupe Velez wearing lounging pajamas that were later copied by Field's and sold in Ladies' Nightwear, so it wasn't a complete lie.
10. I can't swim. But I look awfully cute in my bathing costume.

All right, I've spilled my secrets (at least some of them)...now you should, too. What's one thing that nobody knows about you?

xoxo
Marjorie

It's coming!

Our novel is coming out in a little over two months! Here's what the publisher says about it:

In 1928, Chicago rocks to the rhythm of the Jazz Age, and Prohibition's in full swing. Small-town girl Marjorie Corrigan [that's me!], visiting the city for the first time, has sworn that coffee's the strongest thing that will pass her lips. But her quiet, orderly life turns topsy-turvy when she spots her high school sweetheart--presumed killed in the Great War--alive and well in a train station. Suddenly everything seems up for grabs.

Although the stranger insists he's not who she thinks he is, Marjorie becomes obsessed with finding out the truth. To the dismay of her fiance and family, she moves to the city and takes a job at a department store so she can spy on him. Meanwhile, the glittering world of her roommate, Dot, begins to look awfully enticing--especially when the object of her obsession seems to be part of that world. Is it really that terrible to bob her hair and shorten her skirt? To visit a speakeasy? Just for coffee, of course.

But what about her scruples? What about the successful young doctor to whom she's engaged, who keeps begging her to come back home where she belongs? And what, exactly, is going on at the store's loading dock so late at night?

Amid a whirlwind of trials and temptations, Marjorie must make a choice. Will the mystery man prove to be the cream in her coffee--the missing ingredient to the life she years for? Or will he leave only bitterness in her heart? [Well, I'm certainly not going to spill the beans. You'll just have to read the book and find out!]

Join the Cream Team! I'm told that the purpose of the Cream Team is to help launch the novel into the reader-sphere by reading a pre-pub PDF edition, reviewing it on Amazon and/or Goodreads, recommending it to others, talking it up on social media, and (last but certainly not least) praying for the project and its author. :) [Here in the 1920s, I don't know what all those strange terms mean--PDF? social media? But it all sounds impressive, doesn't it?]In return you get Jennifer's undying gratitude (and mine), plus some nifty bonuses and prizes along the way, including 2 copies of the print edition to keep or share with friends.

If you'd like to join the Cream Team, mail an electronic message to Jennifer at jenny@jenniferlamontleo.com Apparently this is the 21st-century equivalent of dialing her up on the telephone.

XOXOXO
Marjorie