Waitressing offers a chance for two young women to change their lives in Juliette Fay’s engaging and heartfelt historical novel, THE HARVEY GIRLS.

Fay’s eighth book follows Charlotte Crowninshield, the well-educated daughter of a wealthy Boston family, and Billie MacTavish, the eldest child in a loving but relatively poor Nebraska clan. (The novel switches between each woman’s perspective.) It’s 1926, and both have traveled to Kansas City in the hopes of landing a job with Fred Harvey. His innovative company runs the Harvey House chain of restaurants, which provide quality meals to travelers on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The waitresses are known as Harvey Girls, and while their work is demanding and the rules regulating their behavior are strict, the pay is good, and the job offers a rare chance for single women to explore the country.

"...engaging and heartfelt... Fay’s meticulously researched novel offers a window into a slice of American history that will be unfamiliar to many readers."

Charlotte and Billie have very different reasons for seeking a job with Fred Harvey. The older and more worldly Charlotte scandalized her family when she wed her college professor. But he turned out to be a violent alcoholic. Working as a Harvey Girl will take her far away from his possessive clutches (or so she hopes). Billie would rather not take the job at all, and at just 15, she’s technically too young to be hired. But her mother pushes her to seize the opportunity, which will allow her to send much-needed money home and show her the world beyond Table Rock, Nebraska.

As the new girls, Charlotte and Billie room together as they undergo a trial-by-fire training at the Harvey House in Topeka, where they learn to please both demanding bosses and fickle customers. (Anyone who has worked in the service industry will be able to relate to their trials.) Yet rather than becoming allies, their relationship begins with “mutual loathing.” Billie finds Charlotte intimidating and snobbish, while Charlotte judges the naive Billie for being a “fragile flower” who doesn’t understand “the social imperative of emotional control.” It isn’t until Charlotte’s volatile husband shows up at the station that their relationship really starts to shift.

Eventually, Charlotte and Billie find themselves assigned to work at the Grand Canyon’s elegant El Tovar hotel. There, they make new friends and strike up fresh romances while conspiring to keep each other’s secrets. But the past is never far behind, and when familiar faces surface in Arizona, both women will have to make difficult choices about their futures.

Fay’s meticulously researched novel offers a window into a slice of American history that will be unfamiliar to many readers. Fred Harvey and his Harvey Girls made westward travel comfortable in an era not too far removed from that of creaking stagecoaches and questionable taverns. The company’s heyday coincided with a boom in travel to the Southwest, with well-off Americans embarking on grand tours to gawk at the splendor of the Grand Canyon and snap up trinkets crafted by Native Americans.

Fay highlights some of the complexities of that explosion in interest in the region, including the racist belief that the Navajo, Hopi and other tribes needed to be removed from the land in order to preserve it for white tourists. “We’ll clear them out just as soon as it’s legally ours,” one park ranger gleefully tells a horrified Billie. (Fay’s core characters have a convenient habit of embracing more modern and enlightened views on issues such as race and women’s rights.) Later, Charlotte, who’s developed an interest in indigenous culture, questions the company’s “Indian Detours” --- tourist excursions that are “like a safari, only with exotic people instead of exotic animals.”

Fans of Fay’s other books will be delighted by the appearance of two familiar faces from her 2016 novel, THE TUMBLING TURNER SISTERS, Winnie and Gert Turner, who have a connection to one of the characters. But it’s the evolving friendship of Charlotte and Billie that is at the heart of THE HARVEY GIRLS. As they settle into life as Harvey Girls, these “honorary sister[s]” gradually open up and learn to trust each other, proving that lasting connections can spring from the unlikeliest of beginnings.