Allison Pataki, the bestselling author of THE MAGNIFICENT LIVES OF MARJORIE POST and FINDING MARGARET FULLER, is back with another memorable novel. IT GIRL is a sweeping, dazzling reimagining of the life of Evelyn Nesbit, a model to artists, a showgirl and a muse to many a great man.

“They always talked about my eyes,” says Evelyn Talbot. “How they were too big and too deep and too dark and too haunting --- they’d drive a man mad…. Well, how about I tell you what it felt like, to see it all with these eyes? Because the truth? I remember it rather as something more like this…” So begins the tale of America’s first “It Girl,” whose dramatic journey from mining town to Fifth Avenue results in a fatal shooting that rocks Manhattan high society. But per the It Girl herself, this is only part of her story, which begins in 1884 when she is born to a seamstress and a small-town lawyer and is quickly branded the prettiest baby in America.

Tragedy later strikes when her father dies and the family loses everything, leaving Evelyn and her mother and brother, Kit, to reside in a lowly boardinghouse in Pittsburgh. At only 12, Evelyn helps her mother by collecting rent from the house’s male boarders in exchange for a cut in her family’s own rent. Although she can’t quite see it, her beauty already is identified as the kind that can move mountains and make grizzly coal workers part with their precious wages without so much as a groan. When Evelyn is 13, she is pulled from school to work with her mother at the ritzy department store Wanamaker’s. There, she is scouted by a local artist, Leah Dawson, who offers to pay her a dollar a day for sitting for portraits that will be sold for ads.

Evelyn --- or at least her cherubic face --- has become something of an icon. Her portraits are being used in advertisements for everything from cigars to soap, and the papers call her “The Peach from Pittsburgh.” Leah tells Evelyn that her beauty is exquisite, and she has what it takes to make it as a model in New York. However, she always will have to be more careful than most, especially when it comes to men. Naive to the power --- and danger --- of her beauty, Evelyn thinks only of New York, of shedding the dingy boardinghouses her family has been forced to call home and helping her brother experience what the world has to offer.

"Though IT GIRL moves at a fast, exciting pace and treats readers to endless displays of glamour and wealth, it is Pataki’s breakdown of beauty --- its trappings and its possibilities --- that makes the novel absolutely soar."

So it is that Evelyn, having recently been commissioned to pose as an angel for Louis Comfort Tiffany (yes, that Tiffany), packs her bags for the big city, sending Kit to a boarding school and moving with her mother in hopes of something more. She is only 16, and already she is being scouted by the likes of James Carroll Beckwith, who has painted the Roosevelts, the Morgans and Mark Twain; Frederick S. Church, who pairs her with exotic animals in daring works; and Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the “Gibson Girl,” the dazzling personification of the new 1900s American woman.

Evelyn is regarded as an American Helen of Troy, the kind of female for whom men and women alike would start wars. The only problem is that she is not sure that the “woman” label fits. After all, she is still only 16. Without access to education or other girls her age, she is woefully naïve, despite her worldly pursuits. Fortunately, the stage provides an expert education…in all things.

Yes, it is not long before Evelyn finds herself on Broadway as a chorus girl. The producers conveniently turn a blind eye to her age and agree to call her “19.” She already has danced for the likes of the Vanderbilts and the Four Hundred, performing the forbidden "Dance of the Seven Veils" to a scandalized but high-paying crowd. And when she opens herself up to a new audience, she quickly catches the attention of the Pharaoh of Fifth Avenue: Stanley Pierce (based on acclaimed architect Stanford White), builder of Madison Square Garden and benefactor of the stage.

It doesn’t take a behind-the-scenes tell-all for readers to guess at Stanley’s real motives, especially as he begins to shower both Evelyn and her mother with gifts, money and lodging. But Evelyn, sheltered and blind to the world around her, falls easily into his trap. Her education in power dynamics and the trappings of beauty is fast and hard, but so too is her final lesson: that she can wield her beauty as a weapon.

After Stanley comes Hal Thorne (based on playboy Harry Thaw) and, with their entanglement, tragedy. Following the brilliant, tender model set forth by Allison Pataki, I won’t devote much time to what happens to them --- the papers, press and gossip mill have that covered. But what matters is that, after years of being abused, exploited and chased by powerful, wealthy men, Evelyn finds herself at the center of a brutal murder declared “the Crime of the Century.” And, in a move as old as time, the sins of the men who sought to own her are blamed not on their greed, but on the It Girl herself. Fighting gossip rags, conservative propriety and women’s oppression, Evelyn must turn from showgirl to phoenix, rising from the ashes of those who would see her ruined.

Adding to the canon of Gilded Age drama, IT GIRL reminds us that the most fascinating stories often come from much more humble roots. In Pataki’s deft hands, Evelyn Nesbit comes alive as never before, inviting readers into her life and the often painful education she received as a result of her supernatural beauty. Pataki dovetails the very real coming-of-age story of a girl who has seen it all, from poverty to penthouse, with the glittering, luxurious lives of Gilded Age greats. Pairing the new century’s most dazzling inventions with the “tale as old as time” story of the dangers of a woman’s beauty, she paints a searing, sensational portrait not only of the It Girl, but also of America itself and its pop culture. The way she tells it, the It Girl of the 1900s is a deeply American construction, informed by wealth, politics and high society.

In choosing Evelyn as her star, Pataki further entrenches the novel in its setting, describing both sides of America --- the coal town and the big city --- with equal care and attention. Leaping from this meticulously researched and expertly written framework, Evelyn is given the full stage, able to tell her story on her terms for the first time. The result is breathtaking, a clear-eyed, unflinching and head-on account from the young lady herself as she describes everything from the feel of a polar bear rug to the sensation of a photographer’s touch with all the wide-eyed awe of a girl…trapped in the body of a woman. Unlike the men who would seek to claim her, Pataki treats her protagonist’s beauty not as a thing to be owned or coveted, but as both shield and weapon, net and shackle.

Though IT GIRL moves at a fast, exciting pace and treats readers to endless displays of glamour and wealth, it is Pataki’s breakdown of beauty --- its trappings and its possibilities --- that makes the novel absolutely soar. It undoubtedly will inspire insightful, thought-provoking conversations, especially among book clubs.