Review: Behind the Scenes by Jen Turano

A New Series from Jen Turano

Jen Turano is one of my favourite Christian historical romance authors. I love her characters, her witty dialogue, and the underlying truth (Truth) in her novels. And Behind the Scenes is no exception.

The main character is the unfortunately named Miss Permilia Griswold, member of New York’s elite, and well-known (or perhaps unknown) wallflower. The story starts at the famous 1883 costume ball given by Mr and Mrs William Vanderbilt II, an event which let the media into New York society for the first time, for better or worse. The descriptions of the ball are excellent, and my initial suspicions that the descriptions might have been a little over-the-top were allayed when I did a little research. If anything, Behind the Scenes is understated.


The story has touches of Cinderella, with Permilia as the motherless girl, a self-centred stepmother and an even more self-centred step-sister, an absent but loving father, and Mr Asher Rutherford, the owner of one of New York’s biggest department stores, as Prince Charming.

But there is also a suspense element, after Permilia overhears a death threat against Mr Rutherford … and he doesn’t believe her. This leads a quirky troupe of characters on what is best described as a merry chase as Permilia and Asher spend more and more time together as they attempt to find the source of the threat.

My one issue was that there were parts of the story I didn't quite understand, almost as if I'd missed something ... I had. I'd missed At Your Request, the free novella introducing this new series (partly because the novella didn't release until January 2017 and I couldn't resist reading this as soon as the review copy was available. In December 2016). Anyway, I suggest you don't make the same mistake.


Recommended for fans of witty historical romance.

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.