The Dressmaker's Dowry

This novel takes place in San Francisco and features two main female characters who are linked across time by a beautiful emerald ring.
 
The present-day wearer of the ring, Sarah Havensworth, is procrastinating on finishing a novel for her thesis when she stumbles across a story in an old newspaper about two dressmakers who went missing in 1876. She suddenly realizes she has found the true story she is destined to write. As she digs through archives and visits relevant locations in the city, she slowly becomes aware that she’s unraveling a sinister mystery that is linked to her own husband's high society family. Sarah is also hiding her own secrets about her past and when some unknown individual discovers what it is that she is researching, she is subject to blackmail.
 
In 1876, Hannelore (Hanna) Schaeffer and Margaret O’Brien are two seamstresses at the mercy of an unsympathetic employer. The two young women become close friends, drawn together in their struggle against prejudice towards immigrants, poverty, and violent family relationships. When wealthy cousins, Robert and Lucas Havensworth, visit the shop, events are set in motion that will bring both joy and a terrible tragedy. When Margaret disappears, Lucas and Hanna search for her, falling foul of both the mean streets of the Barbary Coast and a wealthy family determined to hide the truth, no matter the cost.
 
The novel is a fast-paced and easy read and the historical details of San Francisco in the 1870s are especially evocative and well-described. Both Hanna and Sarah are worthy portrayals for their respective time and situation, but there are rather a lot of coincidences and loose threads [no pun intended], plus a hurried and questionable conclusion.

[Spoiler alert.] 

Violence against women can never be condoned, whether in the past or today, but the big downer for me with this particular title is its Epilogue where evil avoids its comeuppance. This may be acceptable in true crime or even a novel in a darker or literary genre, but in one such as this which appears to be aimed at a readership that usually cheers to see justice win over male aggression and privilege, it just feels disturbing.
 
Three stars - with reservations.
 
(Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)

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