Strings Attached by Judy Blundell

Set in 1950, seventeen year old Kit Corrigan has fled from her family in Providence, Rhode Island, and she's broken off her tempestuous relationship with a boy named Billy, who's enlisted in the army.  She now works as a chorus girl in a Broadway show that's so tiny that well, she's barely clinging onto her dream and she's pretty much a nobody in New York.  It's so bad that she lives with one of the other chorus girl's parents couch.


Never make deals with the devil, of this case a Mob lawyer.  When Nate (Billy's father) offers her an apartment, Kit jumps at the chance to leave the hard life behind but her gut tells her differently. There's always a catch and this one a pretty big one.  If she wants the apartment, she'll have to get back in contact with Billy and do a couple small favors for Nate.

So with Nate's help she suddenly becomes a somebody. She gets a job as a Lido girl (working at a nightclub and dancing), has her own apartment, and gets a brand new wardrobe.  But small clues point to something more sinister.  When she finally writes Billy he immediately comes back on leave and feelings inevitably resurface.

A lot of the story is told through flashbacks - most only a few months old.  We learn what makes Kit the woman she is becoming and why she had to leave everyone behind she loved to follow her dream of becoming a Broadway star.

I liked the noir aspects of the story and this really has a YA feel as the sexual overtones are very subtle.  Blundell does a great job giving the flavor of the time and life in New York City.  She has a bibliography at the end that makes me want to read more about this time period.