The following unabridged reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers. Reviews may be used for educational purposes consistent with the fair use doctrine in your jurisdiction, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the rights holders.

Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).

From Horn Book

July 1, 2011
When gangster Nate Benedict gets underage chorus girl Kit a job and an apartment, she knows he'll want something in return. That something has to do with Nate's estranged son, now in the service but formerly Kit's sweetheart back home in Providence. Set in 1950 Manhattan with flashbacks to homefront Providence, the novel is expert pastiche with a heroine both glamorous and vulnerable.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

March 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-November 1950 in New York City: a time and place in which everything changes for Kit Corrigan. After dropping out of high school in Providence to pursue dancing and acting, a breakup with Billy Benedict, a college boy and the son of a powerful mob lawyer, propels her to the Big Apple. A fraternal triplet whose mother died in childbirth, Kit has been raised by a working-class father with the sometime help of his sister, Delia. Her brother, Jamie, and Billy have enlisted in the Korean War. In New York, Kit's talent and gorgeous red hair help land her in the chorus of a quick-to-close Broadway show. Her money is disappearing when Mr. Benedict shows up to dangle a carrot she can't ignore: a cozy apartment and an audition to be a Lido Doll. Is it so much just to tell him when she hears from Billy, help with the occasional package, and chat with certain men who frequent the Lido? Goings-on at the club get increasingly sinister, Kit's neighbors are being persecuted as Reds, and somehow Aunt Delia's disappearance is linked to the teen's current New York life. Evoking the glamour, grit, and gusto of the era, Blundell has produced a compelling narrative with well-crafted characters who bring different ambitions, fears, and memories toward tragic collisions. Circling back and forth through the years of Kit's life, readers dip into her Great Depression childhood, her family's bootlegging past, and the stark revelations of the adult world.-Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

March 1, 2011
Grades 9-12 Blundell, a National Book Award winner for What I Saw and How I Lied (2008), returns to themes of lies and secretsand this novel has plenty. Its 1950, and 17-year-old Kit Corrigan has left Providence, Rhode Island, for the bright lights of New York, where she intends to make it as a dancer. When her estranged boyfriends father, Nate, offers her an apartment and arranges a job for her as a Lido girl, Kit doesnt understand all the ramifications. Sure, Nate wants news of his son, Billy, when Billy comes home from the army on leave, but though Kit knows Nates involved with the mob, she doesnt foresee how all that can touch her. Oops. Theres really not much of the teen about Kitshe could be 21 as easily as 17but her voice neatly propels the action, even through the occasionally annoying back-and-forthing in time. One part Jackie Collins novel, one part melodrama (had this been a 1950s movie, Douglas Sirk would have been perfect to direct), and all Blundell, this book is hard to put down.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

From Kirkus

February 1, 2011
Caught up in dreams of dancing on Broadway, Kit Corrigan unwisely accepts an apartment and a nightclub job from mob lawyer Nate Benedict in exchange for keeping tabs on his son Billy, who's enlisted in the Army along with Kit's brother, Jamie. Kit broke off her relationship with Billy after his last jealousy-fueled outburst. Nate starts calling in favors, and Kit becomes entangled in a web of secrets and lies. Like her Aunt Delia before her, she came to New York to escape a suffocating life in Providence and what Jamie calls "the Irish form of advancement—you don't dare do better than those before you." Kit's father had scraped together a living off the novelty of his motherless triplets, the Corrigan Three, in a home with psychic and emotional "undertows, things we didn't understand, and jokes and stories passing for truth." Layers of deception are peeled away in a jumbled sequence of events that echoes Kit's confusion as she discovers the extent of her family's connection with the Benedicts and realizes that her own actions at the age of 12 set in motion a chain of events that end in murder. National Book Award–winner Blundell (What I Saw and How I Lied, 2008) delivers a brilliantly conceived novel set against the backdrop of the 1950 Kefauver mob hearings and the Red Scare with a story of redemption and truth at its core. (Historical fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from January 17, 2011
The New York City mobster scene during the 1950s is vibrantly brought to life in this saga of a poor dancer who pays a high price for the breaks she gets. When the story opens, 17-year-old Kit Corrigan has left her Providence, R.I., family for the lights of Broadway and still has mixed feelings about her hotheaded ex-boyfriend, Billy, who has since joined the army. Then Kit receives an offer she can't refuse: become a snoop for Billy's gangster father in exchange for a much-needed Manhattan apartment and a nightclub gig. Kit almost immediately regrets her decision but is unable to prevent a future tainted by heartache, deception, and murder. Past tragedies suffered by Kit and her Irish-American family are artfully woven into the plot; if the book is a little slow-moving at first, National Book Award–winner Blundell (What I Saw and How I Lied) successfully constructs a complex web of intrigue that connects characters in unexpected ways. History and theater buffs will especially appreciate her attention to detail—Blundell again demonstrates she can turn out first-rate historical fiction. Ages 13–up.

From AudioFile Magazine

Redheaded Kit Corrigan is a dancer with a dream who has fled her Providence, Rhode Island, family and her volatile sweetheart, Billy, to head for Broadway lights. Emma Galvin expertly depicts the exciting world of the theater in 1950s New York. The glamour of uptown nightclubs, the mystique of Greenwich Village, and the postwar optimism of young chorus girls play out against a background of the Korean War, Red scares, and nuclear foreboding. When Billy's father, who works for the Mafia, offers her a deal that could help Kit survive in the city, the plot takes a suspenseful turn. Galvin negotiates flashbacks and period details without ever losing the story's tension. At the end, Judy Blundell takes a curtain call to answer listeners' questions with warmth and charm. M.C.T. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine