Golden Girl


 * "The Dixons aren't the only ones with secrets, or are they?"
 * —The promotion for Golden Girl

Golden Girl is a young-adult historical romance novel by Christine Lange. It is the second novel of the'' Timekeeper Saga. ''

The book continues the story of Chloe Dixon and her adventures as a time-traveler. In the novel, Chloe's new life with her grandparents is threatened when she discovers them dead in the family library. Forced to become an amateur detective, she has to get to figure out how they were killed, and more importantly, why.

Characters

 * Chloe Dixon— She returns for the second installment as the narrator and the main character, facing new challenges which involve painstakingly difficult decisions to be made. In order to prove Marjorie Dixon really killed her mother and grandparents, she is forced to go back in time to the mid-1920s to convince her father and boyfriend of Marjorie's hatred for her family goes far deeper than blood. Fortunately, she ultimately succeeds in playing a role as an amateur detective. When she is forced to confront Marjorie at the end of the novel, she successfully defeats her, making sure that no ghosts of the Dixon family can ever ruin what remaining pieces there are of her life. In the novel, Chloe questions her relationship with Jack and becomes entangled as she becomes entangled in a murderous plot against her family.
 * Jack Flynn —Chloe's love interest she met on board the RMS Titanic, who has now become her boyfriend. Jack willingly goes after Chloe when she tries to open a time portal in her family's attic. During their time in 1924, Jack has a relapse in his smoking and drinking habits, but he ends up quitting cold turkey. Jack is one of the people that make up Chloe's team by the conclusion of the novel.
 * James McKay— Although he is Chloe's father, he acts as a mentor figure with Chloe and Jack during their initial investigation. James is a time traveler himself, as he states that he's familiar with New York in the mid 1920s, having been there almost two decades prior before Chloe was born. Although James becomes the duo's instructor at the end of Haunted, his role is more prominent throughout Golden Girl.
 * Lily Dodds — Chloe's best friend and classmate from Bridgeton Preparatory School. She is eighteen years old, is a very talented musician, and wishes that Chloe would not give into her excessive curiosity. After her grandparents's deaths, Lily gives Chloe a copy of Agatha Christie's novel, Murder on the Orient Express which provides Chloe with something to do while eavesdropping on conversation Marjorie has with other characters later on in the novel.
 * Marjorie Dixon — The main antagonist of the novel. She is the younger sister of Louise Seymour and is considered to be the "abandoned child", according to the Dixon family history. Throughout the novel, Marjorie mainly speaks to other characters, only speaking to Chloe twice. Marjorie is described as having a very feline-looking figure, with curly dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Her voice is smooth as honey yet sharp as razors and because of this, she often is described as having a very unpredictable temper.
 * Cole Porter — A handsome American composer and songwriter. He became prominent in the 1920s due to his attributions as a songwriter for the Broadway musical stage. At first, Chloe is hesitant to trust Cole due to his eccentric personality, but he proves to be valuable and altogether trustworthy. Cole is the key person in stopping Marjorie as he is the one who is driving the car to race Marjorie to Dixon Mansion at the conclusion of the novel.
 * F. Scott Fitzgerald — An American novelist and short-story writer, Scott is often dubbed as being the chronicler of the Jazz Age. Although he doesn't reveal it to a lot of people, most of the women in his novels are largely based on his wife, Zelda. During Chloe's investigation, Scott tipped her off that "The Great Gatsby" will be one of the greatest books ever written, but it isn't until after Fitzgerald's death in 1940 does his book becomes highly recognized in literary circles.
 * Zelda Fitzgerald — A socialite from Montgomery, Alabama, Zelda is the charming wife and inspirational muse of American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. She is around twenty-three years old when she and Scott meet Chloe and Jack for the very first time at one of Cole Porter's lavish parties. Zelda is often noted by many men for not only her beauty, but her free-spirited nature.
 * George Gershwin — An American composer and pianist from Brooklyn, he ends up becoming one of the most significant jazz composers of the 20th century known for his musical theater numbers in addition to his classical music. In the novel, he has recently celebrated the instant success of his latest piece, "Rhapsody in Blue" and meets Chloe, who is drunk, at a bar in Manhattan. He ends up being one of the people in the Dusenberg that James "borrows" after Marjorie challenges Chloe to a race to Dixon Mansion.
 * Ernest Hemingway — An American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations.
 * Fred Astaire — An American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential dancers in the history of film and television musicals.
 * Anthony Moretti — A gambler from Brooklyn who also happens to be Marjorie's boyfriend. Before he is killed in a raid at The Four Queens, he had only been going out with Marjorie for about a year. It is with Tony's death that Marjorie plots her revenge to make Chloe suffer by killing Jack rather than her father, which was the original plan the minute Chloe came into the picture. Even when Chloe, her father, and James try to save Tony from being killed by another gambler, he still ends up dying anyway.
 * Al Capone — An American mobster who often went by the nickname "Scarface". Capone was also a crime boss and businessman who attained notoriety as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. In Golden Girl, he sends his henchman out to beat up Chloe in the alley behind The Four Queens before calling Marjorie up to finish it.

Plot Summary
In the beginning of the novel, Chloe is upset that it's her birthday as she realizes it is the first one she has had without her mother to help her celebrate. Much to her dismay, her grandparents throw her a birthday party later that evening. During the party, Chloe receives a present from her grandparents and a vintage camera from Jack. Her father arrives to the party late, soaking wet from the thunderstorm that had been going on most of the day. He tells her that there is something that they need to go see, which makes Chloe extremely nervous. Reassuring her, Jack tells Chloe he'll still be here when she gets back inside as they still need to have cake. When Chloe and her father go outside to find whatever it is they are looking for, Chloe finds her locket that Jack gave her along with a strange note. Going back inside, they report their findings to Jack, Chloe's grandparents, and some of the staff members only for Jack to wonder how her locket ended up outside in the rain in the first place. Although everyone else tries to bring the attention back to Chloe's birthday party, she cannot help but worry about everyone's safety and Jack tries to cheer her up by saying that he and her father will not let anyone hurt them.

Later that night, Jack proves his own assumptions wrong when a woman named Marjorie Dixon breaks into the library at Dixon Mansion and murders Chloe's grandparents in cold blood. After hearing gunshots while enjoying a cigarette, Jack rushes downstairs and finds Walter and Emily both dead in the library. Feeling the need to tell someone, he goes upstairs to Chloe's bedroom, wakes her up, and tells her what he heard. When they both run downstairs, Chloe opens the door and breaks down in tears after seeing her grandparents dead. While grieving, Jack informs Ms. King to call the authorities.

A couple days after the party, Chloe is determined to find the culprit. She starts by looking in the family archives, but finds nothing. She goes upstairs to the attic, furiously searching for anything that might give her a reason they were killed. Before she can look any further, however, Jack discovers her in the attic. More disappointed than angry, he ends up calling her father up to the attic. When he gets there, he explains that there is nothing Chloe can do to bring her grandparents back. However, Chloe refuses to believe this and is intent on getting vengeance for their deaths. When her father and Jack react to this news, they both explain that her morose behavior is getting to the point where she may end up needing to seek help. Chloe ends up ignoring them anyway and creates a time portal to go through this journey alone. Jack and her father follow after her, intent on knocking some sense into her.

As the three of them travel through the portal, Chloe begins to experience the same side effects she encountered when time traveling for the first time. When they all arrive in New York City in 1924, they appear at the heart of Times Square and are almost ran over by a taxi cab, but James and Jack's quick thinking to push Chloe out of the way saves her life. Chloe agrees they should settle in a discreet motel for the night until they can come up with a better plan on how they should go about solving the murders. The next morning, both Chloe and Jack go wake up to find that her has already bought them clothes to fit in with everyone else. Chloe's outfit is a white pleated mid-knee skirt with a matching, delicate chiffon blouse, baby-blue cardigan, and a white cloche hat adorned with a champagne silk hat band, and t-strap heels. Jack's outfit is similar to the clothes he wore on the Titanic, but he has a tweed vest instead of just wearing a shirt and a pair of suspenders. James explains that wearing these clothes will make it easy to hide their identities, but hard for Marjorie to spot them in a large crowd. Putting them on, Jack helps Chloe pin her hair up and asks James for the next set of instructions.

As their transformations continue, James decides it would be best for Jack and Chloe to adopt different hairstyles, with an emphasis on looking at fashion magazines before going to the barber shop. The next day, they go to get their hair cut. By the time it's Chloe's turn to get her hair cut, she adopts a much shorter style, admitting that the barber cut eighteen inches of her hair off, with her new hairstyle sitting just below her jawline. Overall, this new hairstyle pleases her and she leaves the barber shop with her father and Jack; donning a pretty new hat as an accessory. After their transformations are complete, they head back to their hotel to discuss a strategy plan. Naturally, Chloe asks her father why Marjorie is so set on revenge. Her father answers her by saying it was because he killed her boyfriend the first time he wandered through here on complete accident. He believes that it's only a matter of time for Marjorie to kill Chloe to make things even. After hearing this, Chloe is horrified but does not know exactly how Marjorie will accomplish this goal.

Over the course of the next several weeks, Chloe, Jack, and Chloe's father almost all end up taking turns attending parties all together, with each other, or individually. This ends up being resourceful as they are encouraged to use their surroundings to blend in with crowds in different nightclubs or restaurants to write down field notes about Marjorie. Although Chloe gets good at doing this, she becomes paranoid, fearing that a person in Marjorie's circle will tell her that Chloe is completely vulnerable and that she will eventually discover her true identity.

Aside from this, her grief steadily lessens, though she still feels a pain in her chest when thinking about her grandparents. When Jack suddenly stops seeing her, Chloe panics and confronts him. Jack has fallen in love with Mary Pickford, a Canadian-born film actress and producer. Later on, Jack is found sleeping with her in a hotel room not that far from where Chloe's father has set up a base of operations. Furious, Chloe storms out of the room crying, ignoring Jack following her. She goes all the way to Central Park and cries on a bench. When Jack sees her, he profusely apologizes and says he was set up. Although it takes Chloe a minute to figure everything out, Jack tells her the whole story to her while they walk back to the apartment. A few days later, she forgives him. When that happens, her father asks if there are any recent parties they have attended. Telling him they haven't, James tells them he received a mysterious note, but he doesn't know who sent it as the handwriting is hard to decipher. Jack and James decide they'll send Chloe in as bait, but also giving her explicit instructions to collect the names of her associates and get out before Marjorie is able to blow Chloe's cover.

She attends the party the following week and jots down whatever information she hears from party-goers. As the night goes on, she ends up drinking more and more alcohol to loosen her nerves, only to get drunk a few hours after arriving at the party. She tries leaving the party, but unfortunately ends up bumping into Marjorie on her way out. When she walks outside, she gets all the way to Bryant Park before stopping at a bench and falls asleep. Some time later, Chloe finds herself back at their base and Jack tells her he found her and took her home. It's later revealed that despite their best efforts to blend in, Marjorie has already figured out their identities and plans to expose them. .

Throughout the rest of the novel, Chloe and the others waste no time in plotting what Marjorie's next move will be. As they assess what they have so far, they try retracing their steps to make sure their observations are correct. Within two hours, they are able to figure out the motive for Marjorie killing Chloe's grandparents and discover it had to do with a deal that was made before Chloe was born. By going through that, they are able to determine where the crime happened, when it occured, and how it was done. Eager to end this investigation, Chloe is determined to confront Marjorie to get a proper confession at the Four Queens Club the following day. Unfortunately, the plan falls apart when Chloe finds out Marjorie isn't at The Four Queens Club and is instead substituted by Al Capone. The two get into an altercation that only gets worse when Capone's men take Chloe outside. There, they try to assault her and this ends up working until Marjorie arrives to deal with Chloe personally. Her and Chloe end up getting into a brutal fight with each other, ending in Chloe sustaining at least ten injuries and is left in the street to die. Fortunately, she is found an hour later by the Fitzgeralds, who were on their way to Cole's latest party when they found Chloe lying in the street. They take her to Bellevue Hospital and she is rushed into surgery and survives her ordeal. Four days later, she wakes up to Jack by her bedside, who explains that her being at the Four Queens Club was a trap and they have no choice but to strike back. After two weeks in the hospital, Chloe and the others set up a plan to confront Marjorie face-to-face and contact her once they are ready. They get a reply back several hours later over telephone and are asked to come to an abandoned car factory in Brooklyn. Once they arrive there, Jack and James head into the factory and explain they'll let Chloe know when to come in by giving her the thumbs up hand signal.

After being searched, Jack explains he left something in the car. Giving Chloe the hand signal, he stalls for enough time to make sure she arrives as expected. They go inside and Marjorie is the first one to notice Chloe in the group, and is disappointed that she survived the brutal fight in the alleyway. After some discussion, Marjorie reveals that she's known about their efforts to bring closure to Walter and Emily's case, but has been waiting for them to confront her about her role in it. Although Chloe and the others cannot confirm her role in it for sure, this leads to Marjorie getting impatient and threaten to kill the only two men Chloe has left in her life. Surprisingly, Chloe is able to convince Marjorie not to kill them and the two of them agree to meet up at Dixon Mansion for a final showdown where they can settle this out like adults.

Although it starts off as a civilized dispute, Marjorie ends up turning it into a race where whoever gets to Dixon Mansion first gets to interrogate the other. Even though Marjorie gets a head start by racing to find a portal, Chloe already has the upper hand and uses her skeleton key, which opens a portal that sends her to modern day New York City. Once arriving in Times Square in a 1924 Buick, they make a mad dash towards the mansion, arriving there just before eight o'clock that evening. However, when they are almost there, Marjorie comes out of nowhere and nearly side-sweeps the Buick off the road. Fortunately, Chloe is able to avoid it by swerving just in the nick of time. Chloe gets there first and tries telling Ms. King they'll explain everything after they get rid of Marjorie.

Not long after they get up to the roof, they are surprised to find Marjorie sitting on top of an air conditioning system, smoking a cigarette. James tries to go after Marjorie for hurting Chloe, but Marjorie explains she wants to speak with Chloe. Over the next few hours, Marjorie and Chloe end up talking until Chloe asks if she killed her grandparents. This question surprises Marjorie and she vehemently denies it until Chloe shows proof she did by holding up bullets from an M-1917 Revolver, which happens to be the murder weapon with the fingerprints still on it. Under immense pressure, Marjorie admits to killing both Chloe's grandparents and her mother, but blames it on the mafia for forcing her into doing such unspeakable acts. As predicted, the mafia show up and shoot Marjorie dead until her body falls to the ground, riddled with bullet holes. In a final act, Al Capone kicks her corpse off the edge of the roof and she falls down to the gravel driveway five stories down, dead.

The book ends with Chloe getting accepted in Juilliard after a successful audition. Because she hadn't really thought about college until her life changed with the deaths of her mother and grandparents, she was unsure of if she should try and apply, but was able to do so after having a serious talk with her father. When Jack and Chloe come back from a date, James gives them the good news that Chloe got in. Chloe is ecstatic and goes inside to tell the staff about her big news and, as expected, everyone is happy for Chloe. The novel ends with the staff at Dixon Mansion throwing a big party for Chloe getting into the college of her dreams. Chloe then goes on to explain that for the first time in her life, she is finally happy with where her life is headed.

Cover and Title Significance
Christine Lange has stated that the golden skyline of New York City on the cover of Golden Girl has some significance to the story, as she had a part in choosing its design. It is supposed to represent the glittering facade of the Jazz Age being an age of excess and a time of loose morals. However, she has interpreted it as a time of change in Chloe and Jack's relationship as it is tested with the rampant corruption of 1920s Manhattan. Like the semi-faded skyline, both Chloe and Jack struggle to remain loyal to one another and fall prey to addictive vices such as alcohol and tobacco.

The title refers to Chloe's loss of innocence in the novel, indicating that Golden Girl is the darkest time in Chloe's life when she really questions her reasons for loving Jack while also trying to solve a murder.

Trivia

 * Christine Lange has said she came up with the idea for the novel after reading The Gin Lovers by Jamie Brenner in addition to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby.
 * In the initial draft, Marjorie Dixon was not related to Louise at all. It was only after revisiting Haunted that Lange found some inconsistencies with Marjorie being an outside force and decided to make her be related to Louise.
 * Also in the initial draft, Jack came back after Walter and Emily died. However, this was changed due to timing issues in the novel's timeline.
 * In Chapter 15 of Golden Girl, Chloe had originally sustained almost twenty injuries. However, she opted to have Chloe sustain less injuries.
 * Initially, the novel's setting was placed in 1920, but Lange realized that there was not going on very much besides Prohibition being passed in January of that year, so she decided to place the novel in 1924, which was easier to find references for music, books, and fashion for that particular year.
 * George Gershwin is one of the few musicians in the novel who actually had several girlfriends in real life, but he never settled down and got married. This was partially the reason Lange wanted to include him in the novel in addition to his talent as a rising pianist on the American music scene.
 * The book is still in the writing process, but it will soon be uploaded and published on Wattpad.
 * The music from Baz Luhrman's adaption of “The Great Gatsby” was a huge influence on the film's party scenes, as it gave Lange cues on how to set up the mood for each scene.