Kopp sisters on the march

Review by Booklist Review

Adrift after being fired as deputy sheriff in Bergen County, New Jersey, Constance Kopp joins her sisters Norma and Fleurette at the newly established National Service School for women at Camp Chevy Chase, Maryland, in 1917. When the camp matron breaks her leg, Constance is persuaded to take over, and, liking nothing more than being in charge, she begins to tailor classes to resemble men's training, including marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat for a select few. While many of the campers are young women from wealthy Manhattan families, one doesn't fit that mold: Beulah Binford, a national symbol of moral degeneracy, views the camp as her last resort after being sacked as both an officer at a New York factory and the mistress of the factory's owner. Claiming to be Roxanne Collins of Park Avenue, she trains lackadaisically and keeps her anonymity until provoked, in an incident that rocks the camp. As the U.S. enters WWI, Constance takes command to show what women can do. Told in Stewart's nimble, witty prose, this fifth in the popular series is based largely on fact and offers a paean to patriotism and the role women have played in war, even a century ago. Devoted fans will be pleased with the tantalizing hint Stewart provides about what lies ahead for Constance.--Michele Leber Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Set in the spring of 1917, Stewart's enjoyable fifth Kopp Sisters novel (after 2018's Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit) finds the three Kopp sisters ready to do their bit as the U.S. prepares to enter WWI. They head off to the National Service School in Maryland, a camp to teach women ways to help the war effort. Constance, the eldest, is at loose ends after losing her job as sheriff's deputy in Paterson, N.J. Middle sister Norma thinks the army will need her homing pigeons to carry messages from the battlefield. Fleurette, the youngest, plans to entertain the troops. All the volunteers have their own reasons for being there, but one in particular, the notorious real-life Beulah Binford, is hoping to finally put her past behind her. Flashbacks reveal Beulah's role in a murder scandal. When Constance is recruited to run the camp, she quickly decides the girls should know more about preparedness than rolling bandages. Convincing characters behave in ways true to their era. Stewart does a wonderful job of illuminating a fascinating period in American history. Author tour. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary. (Sept.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

This fifth installment of the Kopp Sisters series (after Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit) opens with real-life Beulah Binford trying to escape her scandalous past and its ensuing newspaper headlines by enrolling in the National Service School, a training camp in New Jersey for young women who want to help with war duties. The Kopp sisters, led by Norma and her pigeons, arrive at the same time that Beulah does, and both parties quickly realize that their camp's purpose is more decorative than functional. After an accident catapults Constance into the role of camp matron, the routines at the camp improve, and the sisters each begin to find a new purpose as they learn new skills. Just as Beulah is adjusting to her new life, Fleurette, the youngest Kopp sister, arranges a visit from a vaudeville troupe to entertain the women. The troupe's arrival means Beulah's secrets are no longer safe, which forces her and Constance to become unlikely allies against the gendered double standards of 1917. VERDICT A thrilling mix of history and feminism, this new "Kopp" story contains the same captivating storytelling as the first one, with plenty of nuggets for series fans. [See Prepub Alert, 3/4/19.]--Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

After losing her dream job as Bergen County deputy sheriff, Constance Kopp regroups at a Maryland Army camp for women on the eve of World War I.In the fifth installment of her feisty, fact-based series (Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, 2018, etc.), Stewart throws an additional real-life figure into the fictional mix: Beulah Binford, fleeing a notorious past in Richmond and thinking that training to support the troops will be her ticket to a new life in Franceif only no one recognizes her. What precisely Beulah is trying to hide is the only sort-of mystery here, and her memories leading up to that revelation form a substantial part of the novel. Though her story is fairly interesting, it does give Stewart less room for the Kopp sisters. That may be just as well, since Norma's efforts to persuade the Army of the value of carrier pigeons is neither as interesting nor as funny as Stewart seems to think, and Fleurette's stage-struck self-absorption is a slightly shopworn trait, though it is fun to see Beulah taking tart notice of it. Constance, who reluctantly assumes command of the camp after an injury sidelines her predecessor, dismisses the training deemed suitable for ladies as "a game" and secretly instructs a small group of equally determined women in the use of real guns. But she's still brooding over her vanished opportunity in law enforcement, and a bit of a bore about it too, until Beulah proves the worth of her insertion into the series by forcefully (but not unsympathetically) urging Constance to make her own opportunities. A slam-bang finale mostly compensates for the fuzzy focus of this installment: Constance's unorthodox training is triumphantly justified, and Norma wins a high-ranking ally for her pigeons. Plenty of loose ends are dangled for future volumes as Constance and Beulah both make peace with their pasts and plans to move forward.A bit messy, but perhaps required to recalibrate this deservedly popular series for future volumes. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Beulah knew it was over when she returned from lunch to find her desk cleared and a little box placed on the seat of her chair, like a gift.   PINKMAN HOSIERY, read the foil stamping. THREE DOZEN ASSORTED. It was the very style of box that Beulah had been hired to paste together when she started at the factory six months earlier, before she was promoted to office girl. She didn't have to look inside to know that it held the contents of her desk drawer: her comb, her lip-stick, her extra handkerchiefs, and a subway token, along with the silk sheers that Mr. Pinkman bestowed upon every girl he fired as a final, guilty, lily-livered parting gift.   Beulah lifted the box slowly, as if in a dream, and looked around at the rows of desks surrounding hers. Mr. Pinkman employed a dozen office girls in a high-ceilinged but nevertheless cramped room, so that they were obliged to push their desks together and work elbow to elbow. There were no secrets among the typists and billing clerks.   Every eye in the room darted briefly up to Beulah and away again. Typewriters clattered, order forms shuffled, and chairs squeaked and groaned as the girls went about their business. Beulah knew that the dignified course of action was to clutch her little box to her chest and to skitter away quietly, blinking back a few repentant tears as she went out the door for the last time.   That's how she used to do it, back when she first arrived in New York. She thought it was a requirement of the job to behave politely as she was being put out on the street. But then it occurred to her that once she'd been dismissed, she was free to do as she pleased.   What pleased her at that moment was to have a word with Mr. Theodore Pinkman, who was peeking out at her from behind the blinds in his office, like the petty and spineless man that he was. He loved to hide away in that wallpapered den of his, and pretend not to watch the girls in the next room.   He drew away when she caught him staring at her. Of course he did. He could never own up to anything. He was already fumbling to lock the door as she marched over, but he couldn't manage it. For a man who manufactured ladies' undergarments, he was utterly inept with handles, knobs, buttons, clasps, and other small fittings. Beulah had found it endearing at first, but lately she'd come to believe that there was something deficient in a man who couldn't properly undress a woman--or fire one.   She gave the still-rattling doorknob a hard turn and shouldered her way in. Mr. Pinkman fell back against his desk, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him, blushing, sweating, his curly hair resisting his daily efforts to slick it down, those blue eyes, round as a child's, registering a look of perpetual surprise.   He stumbled to his feet and tugged at his vest. "Ah--hello. I--"   "A little box on my chair, Teddy? Like I'm any other girl? I fixed your dinner last night. I made those damn little French potatoes that take an hour to peel because you won't eat the skins. I ironed your collar ​-- ​the one you're wearing right now! And you send me away with a box of stockings?"   She tossed it down and it fell open. The contents were exactly as she'd expected, except for a folded bill on top. To her parting gift he'd added ten dollars.   Did Mr. Pinkman honestly think that would satisfy her?   He did. "There, you see? It's not only stockings. You . . . you've been so much more to me . . . you know that . . . only, it seems that Mrs. Pinkman . . ."   He trailed off, finding himself unable to make the simplest of explanations for a circumstance that was as old as marriage itself.   "Mrs. Pinkman need never have found out, if you knew one thing about keeping a secret, which you don't," Beulah said. "What'd you do, leave a coat-check tag in your pocket? Come home with perfume on your handkerchief?"   He didn't answer. He didn't have to. It was always one or the other, the ticket or the handkerchief.   Beulah crossed her arms and paced around his office in a circle, as if she owned it, which she did, in that moment. "Well. What are we going to do now? You've dismissed me, because she insisted on it, and she'll know if I'm still working here. She'll come around and check. But she doesn't know about our flat, does she? And you signed a lease through December.    Excerpted from Kopp Sisters on the March by Amy Stewart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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