Now available for pre-order: You're the Cream in My Coffee!

He-e-e-ere we go! Our novel is now available for pre-order on Amazon! (A flattering image of me on the cover, n'est-ce pas? Too bad I have absolutely no memory of when it was taken...) Hop on over and order yours. Then it will automatically be delivered to you on September 15, without your having to think about it again.

A lovely author friend named Susie Finkbeiner (author of A Cup of Dust) wrote:

Every single inch of this novel is delightful. From the start Marjorie Corrigan felt like a friend, one I was glad to see each time I returned to her story. With charming characters and a plot that keeps moving, this is a novel you don't want to miss. Jennifer Lamont Leo is a fresh voice in Christian fiction. I can't wait to read more of her work.

And another lovely author friend named Sarah Sundin (author of Anchor in the Storm) wrote:

The cat¹s pajamas! Rich in jazzy details of 1920s Chicago, You¹re the Cream in My Coffee is a sparkling debut novel. With an adventurous heroine, intriguing side characters, and a thought-provoking message, this story will keep you riveted. Jennifer Lamont Leo is a name to watch in historical fiction!

Be sure to check out Susie's and Sarah's books as well! They write inspirational historical fiction, just like Jennifer does. 

Love,
Marjorie
xoxoxo

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

The Roaring Twenties: A Family Connection!

I was thrilled this morning when my author shared the photo above with me. It's her great-aunt, Dorothy Mulac, who in the Roaring Twenties lives right here in Chicago. I must look her up! How pretty she is, and so stylish. The style of hat she's wearing is called a "cloche," which is French for "bell" because of its shape. Some people called it a "helmet." It looks like Dorothy's hair has been bobbed short, which is considered quite daring in our day. From the little Jennifer knew of her great-aunt, she was not a shy lady, but a bolder sort of personality. Her facial expression here indicates that she brooks no nonsense. But she is quite pretty, with those piercing dark eyes, which, alas, Jennifer did not inherit.

Here is a poster that a barber of the time might have put up as he more or less reluctantly accepted the rush of feminine customers requesting his skills with a razor. 

My own personal story of getting my hair bobbed will soon be available to all and sundry in You're the Cream in My Coffee, releasing September 2016. I did the deed under the questionable influence of my dear friend, who ironically is also named Dorothy, but everyone calls her Dot. With bobbed hair, she looks like Louise Brooks. Me, not so much, but I like it anyway.

XOXO
Marjorie

Trouble Brewing: A Roaring Twenties Short Story

Oooh, am I ever in hot water! I've just been informed by my author (and rather rudely, too, I must say) that I've neglected to tell you about Trouble Brewing, the short story she penned about the time our landlady was brewing something suspicious in her kitchen and somebody called the cops. It wasn't me who called, I swear, although, let me tell you, our apartment stank to high heaven for days. Not even the clouds of "Evening in Paris" that Dot sprayed all over the place did any good. 

Anyway, Jennifer thought the whole incident made a whopping good story and wrote it up for your amusement. Apparently she finds my life ever so much more interesting than her own, poor dear. It's currently free on Amazon, or free to Amazons, or free for people living along the Amazon, or something like that. Still working on getting your 21st-century lingo down.

xoxoxo
Marjorie

Porch party!

"An informal porch party, with the right sort of hostess, will rouse enthusiasm...More strenuous but quite as well worthwhile, are community picnics...Refreshments... should be homemade if practicable. Too often our fashions for public luncheons are settled by the caterers, and what they find it most convenient to serve. Wherever there is a historical aspect about our picnic...why not plan the food to be served to fit the period as carefully as we do the costumes? Few would be ready to lend choice, old china, even to decorate the tables, but it may be there are some pewter platters and pitchers, that would not be injured by use, and would lend an 'air' to the whole feast. Pies and doughnuts, loaf cakes and cookies are to be chosen rather than the ices and angel cakes of the present day, and often will win applause because they are less common than ice cream. Since ice cream cones have become daily food, it is no longer a rarity, a 'treat,' in the old sense of that word."
---"Summer Celebrations," Anna Barrows American Cookery, June-July 1925 (p. 23-26) 

What could be more fun in the summertime than a party on the porch? Just call the neighbors over and enjoy a feast! Anna Barrows was talking here about an Independence Day party, hence the reference to historic costumes. Oodles of patriotic fun! (But since when did ice cream cones become "daily food"? In my dreams!)

A porch party wouldn't really work in the Chicago two-flat Dot and I share--unless it were an intimate picnic a deux on the miniscule back porch, which sounds romantic but made less so by the presence of the landlady's lawn mowing apparatus. But it would be just the thing for the big porch of my parents' home in Kerryville.

Just three more months until our book comes out! Then obscure references like "Kerryville" and "Chicago two-flat" will make sense to you--I promise!

xoxoxo
Marjorie

Slimming Down, 1920s Style

My author and I have embarked on a health regime together. She thinks life in the 21st century is taking a toll on her figure and her health, not to mention her nerves, and I'm inclined to agree. I tend toward a few too many curves myself, especially to suit the straight, boyish silhouette of my day--a look I can achieve only with substantial corsetting. Still, not to gloat, but I am substantially slimmer than Jennifer. So I've sent her a few helpful dieting tips from the 1920s, which I'm sure she'll appreciate after she's calmed down. After all, I'm only trying to help.

The ideal ironing-board figure of the 1920s.

 

 Here's how the average person stays slim in the 1920s:

*Eat real food. Not all this factory-made, processed stuff created in a laboratory. Laboratories bring to mind Dr. Frankenstein, a favorite subject of silent pictures. Having seen various versions on the silver screen, I'd have to say no, thanks, to any food that comes out of a laboratory. You simply don't know what's in it.

*Mind your portions. Here in the 1920s, we drink coffee in a cup and saucer, 8 ounces at a time. Even when we add cream and sugar, it amounts to maybe 45 calories. On my visits to your era, I see people gulping down gigantic mugs of the stuff with all manner of sweeteners and creamers, to the tune of hundreds of calories. At the movies we nibble a bag of popcorn; you moderns order a great tubful and chomp it down like there's no tomorrow. Our Coca-Cola came in a dainty 8-ounce bottle. Yours tops 20 ounces. And so on. Honestly, do you really need all that food? I think not, especially if you're not swinging a hammer, beating rugs, or plowing the back forty all day long.

*Put some elbow grease into your chores. So many things are done for you in the 21st century, or

made much easier by electricity. Forego that noisy lawn mower and push a manual one up and down the lawn a few times. Haul your wet laundry outside and hang it on the line to dry. Scrub the floor on your hands and knees. After all that, if you still need exercise, take a walk!

Of course, we have our quackery, too, here in the 1920s, from tapeworms to fad diets to questionable diet elixirs. Caveat emptor! And we do have those curious Lucky Strike ads urging

people to lose weight by smoking cigarettes, which I understand would never, ever  fly in your day. Still, if the 21st century moderns could stop laughing at us once in a while and take a look at how we did things, they might learn a thing or two.

XOXOXO
Marjorie