Name: The Grace Kelly Dress
ISBN: 9781643586021

Brenda Janowitz

Paris, 1958: Rose, a seamstress at a fashionable atelier, has been entrusted with sewing a Grace Kelly look-alike gown for a wealthy bride-to-be. But when, against better judgment, she finds herself falling in love with the bride's handsome brother, Rose must make an impossible choice, one that could put all she's worked for at risk: love, security and of course, the dress.

The Grace Kelly Dress

One dress. Three generations of women. A lifetime of love.In Paris, 1958, Grace Kelly's royal wedding dress is still all the rage in fashion circles. Rose, a seamstress at a famous atelier, has just been entrusted with sewing another gown in its image. An orphan, she needs her job to survive. But when Rose finds herself in love with the bride's handsome brother, she must decide what matters most: love or security.Sixty years later, Rocky is thrilled to be marrying the love of her life. He truly is her perfect fit. But there's just one problem: her family's heirloom wedding dress isn't. Rocky knows this admission will break her mother's heart. What she doesn't know is why her mother is so set on the dress--or about the shocking secret that changed her mother's life decades before, as she prepared to wear the dress herself. As the wedding day approaches, the mother-daughter pair will finally confront long-buried heartaches, and it might just be the dress that brings them closer than ever.Life-affirming, heartwarming and timeless, Brenda Janowitz's The Grace Kelly Dress is about the importance of tradition, new and old, and the power of a dress to fulfill even the most impossible of dreams.

Anika | The.Bookish.Traveler 🌸

“But if love at first sight did not exist, what was this feeling in her chest, in her heart? This feeling that left her woozy, as if she were floating?”⁣
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The Grace Kelly Dress was an absolute delight to read! I really loved reading about all 3 women and how different each of their lives were. ⁣
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We first meet “Rocky” who is the bride to be. She is spunky and a bit tomboyish. And she is not one to wear a dress. THE dress. The dress that was passed down to her mother by her grandmother. ⁣
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Throughout the novel we see Rocky experience so many emotions not only about the dress but also with her fiancée, Drew, and her mother Joan. I really loved her character development and being able to see a mother/daughter relationship get stronger. ⁣
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However, my absolute favorite storyline was that of the seamstress, Rose, aka Rocky’s grandmother. Maybe it was being in Paris or the fact that this fairytale love story was happening but I was complete captivated by her life! ⁣
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The Grace Kelly Dress is a 4 star read for me because even though I really loved reading about Rose I felt that there was connection missing from Rocky and Joans storyline. This definitely sparked an interest in me to keep reading historical fiction and other books by Brenda Janowitz! ⁣

Leelynn Brady

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Netgalley, and Graydon House Books for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

So I really wanted to read this novel because it was reminding me of another book I read about a famous dress and famous wedding, and this gave me another story to fall in love with historical fiction and beautiful wedding dresses. I don’t remember the dress that Grace Kelly wore and yeah sure it was before my time but looking it up and seeing just how gorgeous it was ended up making sense. I’m so glad that this book came into existence, and thank you so much to Janowitz for writing this story.


I think one of my favorite tropes with historical fiction novels is when there’s an item that connects generations of people together in such an interesting way – like this wedding dress. It could be passed down from mother to daughter like any other dress, but the fact that this is a hugely famous dress and everything that went into it was pretty insane also makes it so much more than a family heirloom to the world. I think that’s what appeals me so much about books like this.

So yeah this actually broke my heart, of course. I was expecting to have some tears fall but I was also super happy with the ending and just felt like I was a part of this family – well maybe not Grace Kelly and the royal family, but definitely Rose and Rachel’s families. I think also, as a woman that could have inherited my mother’s wedding dress – if I were her size and if I had an actual ceremony – this struck a cord in me because I think about what I missed out on and what kind of emotions could have been going through me during this time.

Maybe it’s a bit sentimental and all that, but a girl can dream about the choices she did’t make, right? Nothing wrong with that.

The Grace Kelly Dress

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