Excerpt from The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Her vibrancy was overshadowing. But I didn't mind. I flourished in the tough and scrawny shadow of Rose Tiller. I followed her everywhere, much to the dismay of my stern mother who would rather I play quietly inside than skip rope outside, noisily counting jumps and giggling when our ropes got tangled.

Our fathers were both loggers back then. Back before my father's accident. Now her dad was the manager at the sawmill, and mine was often found drunk on whatever cheap and illegal booze he could get his hands on while my older brother, Tommy, worked to pay the bills so we could keep our home. But even with Tommy working at the mill, Mama and I had to take in sewing jobs because a family of nine was a lot to keep fed and clothed.

"It's Friday night, Z," Rose said, her rosebud lips forming a pout. It was no wonder she'd always had boys lining up for her. She was what my older brother, Tommy, and his friends called a stunner. "You're twenty-one. She can't make you stay home."

I could count on my fingers and toes the number of times we'd had this argument.

"I know," I said. "But there's a pile of work to get through and some of it is intricate stuff only I can do. Plus, I have nothing to wear to a club. Look at me."

I ran a hand down my drab, colorless frock. I could remember being a young girl and looking up at my mother wearing this exact dress. The fabric then was thick and velvety, but after years of wear and having been patched and sewn time and time again, it was now threadbare and fraying at the hems. I pulled at a stray thread, watching the fabric around it loosen as Rose persisted.

"What about your gray dress?" she asked.

"Rose." I grinned. "From the descriptions you've given me, my gray dress is fine for up here where the only place I go is to the market or the mill. But down there?" I shook my head. "No way."

"First of all, Jackson Street ain't uppity downtown. It's down downtown. Second, you're right. You'll stand out for all the wrong reasons if you wear that." She chewed her full lower lip, turning its natural pink shade a deeper hue. "I really don't understand why you don't sew yourself something. All those scraps have to amount to a dress, don't they?"

"Sure, if I want to wear a patchwork dress. Is that what they're all wearing to the clubs?" I laughed. "Is that what Mrs. Denny and Mrs. Fauntleroy go out to dinner in?"

"Well, no," she said, snickering. "But they might if you made it. It would be a masterpiece. The women would be lining the street to have one made."

"I highly doubt that. Nevertheless, it ain't gonna happen. Mama would never give me the time off to do it. If I've got time to sew for myself, I've got time to work through the pile and make us some money."

"Fine," she said, her eyes skimming up and down my body. "Tell ya what, it'll be a tad big on you since you're so thin, but you can wear that pink dress you fixed up for me. The one with the little ruffle at the hem in back?"

"Rose." I shook my head, my long, dark locks, so utterly out of fashion, swinging across my back.

I wanted to say yes. To throw caution to the wind. To assert myself with my mother and tell her I was going out and she couldn't stop me. At night I sometimes lay in bed beside my next-in-line sister, Sarah, in the bedroom we shared with two of our five siblings, and dreamed of dancing until dawn, my hand in the grip of a handsome young man, while wearing a dress I'd made just for me. Not something that had been handed down or made for someone else and tossed aside.

I had a stash of pictures I'd torn from Rose's mom's old magazines, and ads from the newspaper that I'd drawn over, reimagining hemlines and necklines and fabrics. I drew feathers on hats and bows on the shoes. There were ruffled collars, pleated skirts, and trousers with wide, swinging cuffs.

Beside the drawings were images of Coco Chanel, Clara Bow, and Josephine Baker. Each one's style inspiring something different.

Excerpted from The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar. Copyright © 2023 by Noelle Salazar. Excerpted by permission of Mira Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.