Jenny's Fame

About the Book

Framed in beauty. Fueled by ambition. Flushed with pride after designing a wedding gown for British royalty, Jenny returns from London, determined to fulfill her dream of becoming a famous fashion designer.

Why not? She designs dresses and lingerie for New York and Philadelphia manufacturers and owns a successful boutique, housed in a charming little Victorian house. She designs gowns and hotel uniforms for wealthy clients on both the East and West coasts.

As soon as she divorces Jonathan, an abusive husband, she marries Tony, the man she loves. She didn’t marry Tony, in the first place, because she realized that Tony’s twin brother Gus also loves her. It was impossible to marry one and hurt the other. Gus solves her dilemma by marrying Martha. But Martha hates Jenny, jealous of her beauty and because she knows Gus loves Jenny. In an attempt to kill Jenny in a public garage one day, Martha loses her own life.

Tony manages the boutique, also the workers in both the shop and in the workroom where skilled dressmakers make the original gowns that Jenny designs under her own label. So when Jenny inherits the lingerie factory from her friend Colya, Tony has more work than he can handle. They invite Gus to give up his restaurant in New York, move to Philadelphia and manage the factory. He leaps at the chance. Separation for the twins was always difficult. When one is seriously injured, the other instantly experiences the same pain.

Jenny’s household is run by two competent women who care for her small son Jon and baby Lisa. Jonathan knows nothing about his daughter until their chance meeting at Disney World where a terrible scene ensues. At Christmas time, he brings gifts to his children. Jenny nearly cries when she sees how sick he looks. Later, when she and Tony return from a honeymoon in Paris, they find that Jonathan, now mentally ill, has kidnaped Lisa. A frantic search follows, ending in tragedy.

Gus does well managing the factory, which he is told he may buy one day at a bargain basement price. Meanwhile, he becomes entangled with a rich girl who stalks and tricks him into marriage, claiming that her baby belongs to him.

Love binds Jenny and her family together. Her family includes Jonathan’s siblings and their family members, all of whom come to live close to Jenny. Tony jokingly calls her a little spider who draws everyone into her web.

Because she has little time for her children and heaps responsibility on Tony until he has a heart attack, Jenny realizes that fame is a fraud, not worth the sacrifice of those she loves.

About the Author

At age 86, the author hung up her tennis racquet and edited her trilogy of novels written years ago: Jenny’s Family Circle, Jenny’s Fame, The Many Paths of Love. The characters in her books became like family, so she wanted to see them in print. Two nonfiction books: Altoona and the Pennsylvania Railroad and Voices of the Pennsylvania Railroad were published in 1999 and 2001. Now in print is her young adult novel Abby and the Ugly Man (Mr. Lincoln). Also published were 95 of her stories, essays and poems. Her articles about present-day concerns appear monthly in area newspapers.