I absolutely loved this book. I'm a sucker for a novel with dual timelines and something linking the two people, and this nailed it.

Anne is a present struggling artist that works in collage. She finds the black velvet coat from the title in a thrift shop, along with a key in the pocket. The coat prompts her to search for the owner, and in doing so is inspired in her art...in a manner that is almost, dare I say, magical?

Sylvia is the original owner of the coat (some 50 years earlier), and her story is captivating. She is an heiress who is drawn in by a bad boy - a very bad boy - and finds herself hurtling towards a marriage with a man who isn't who she thought him to be.

How their storylines unfold, and eventually connect, is engaging and captivating. You'll be rooting for both Anne and Sylvia to find their courage and their happy endings! I devoured this book!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Ann McFarland is a struggling San Francisco artist who is refusing to allow herself to be so down on her luck that she will give in to move back home to Michigan. She needs inspiration to get ideas to start flowing. She has done pieces but often no art dealer with show her work. She is a nobody and has no credance anywhere at this point. But this is her passion, how could she give it all up?

While thrifting, she comes across a black velvet jacket, that she just cannot pass up. Granted she now may not afford groceries and will be short on her rent, once again, but it's almost calling to her. She cannot leave the store without it. She finds a key in the one pocket and odd things start to happen. She swears she can smell odd scents an on more than one occasion the key appears to have been warm and glowed.

The coat also came with a snowflake pin, a bonus of sorts. This stimulates her creativity and she decides to research this jackets. It is a name brand jacket and where did it come from after all. She stumbles across some new articles of a women and man who went missing the night of their engagement party and it appears the woman is wearing this same jacket, and is that a snowflake pin as well? Can't be!

Ann has now gone down a rabbit hole of inspiration and wanting to know more. What happened to this couple? Who is the woman? How did this jacket end up in a thrift store decades later, and with a key in the pocket?

Her creativity and inspiration are kicked into high gear, and Ann finds encouragement as she does everything she can to find out who this mystery woman is that is inspiring her work, and once appeared to have worn this very jacket.

A very well written story, told through Ann as well as Sylvia Van Dam, the original owner of the jacket and how things turned out to be. I highly enjoyed this novel and had to run to my book shelf for the next one, The Silver Shoes. ( )

You can find my original review at Carlene Inspired, http://carleneinspired.blogspot.com.

4.5 stars
Many thanks to Netgalley and She Writes Press for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Anne and Sylvia are opposites in several ways and similar in even more. I related to Anne in every way, from money struggles to not knowing how to become successful with her dream. Sylvia, however, is the girl I dreamed of becoming in every way. I enjoyed reading as Anne fumbled through doing what she wanted and doing what seemed to be the right path to pick herself back up. She was headstrong, determined, and jaded by her lack of luck in life. Sylvia's story was fun to read, it tugged at my heart and I wanted a full book based on her alone. I enjoyed reading about her growth, her advents as she found out who she was, and finding her way home. They're delightful characters, facing the struggles of love, loss, and life's greatest mysteries in two separate decades, yet connected in the simplest of ways. The writing is incredibly well done and if I didn't know it was Jill G. Hall's debut novel, I would have said it was written by a seasoned author. The story has a reach plot, filled with plenty of detail to find yourself in the 1960's and then turning the page to find yourself in today's San Francisco. I enjoyed the setting, loved the minor characters that brought each moment to life, and the connection between the two had me turning pages as fast as I could. I won't give anything away, but from trips to Tiffany's to the process of creating art based on a muse from the past, this book has something for everyone looking for a little magic. ( )

Well written, interesting storyline.

Anne is an struggling artist, hoping for her big break.

Fifty years ago, Sylvia is an orphaned heiress. She is at a turning point in her life, she's met a charming, possibly dangerous man who she quickly falls in love with and plans to marry.

These two women are tied together by a coat. Anne buys the coat in a vintage shop and it used to belong to Sylvia.
The coat inspires Anne to look into Sylvia. It becomes a mystery, a mission, and the inspiration behind her newest art series.

Minor spoiler here, I really wanted the coat to be magic. If there had been a magical element of some sort here I would have considered it 4 stars if not higher.
( )

You can never predict what seemingly ordinary item will catch your fancy and not let it go. Muse and inspiration are a mystery and as individual as snow flakes. But once something has captured your imagination, following it where it leads can make surprising connections or even change the trajectory of your life. In Jill G. Hall's debut novel, The Black Velvet Coat, muse and inspiration do both.

Anne McFarland is a struggling artist in San Francisco when she sees a black velvet coat in the front window of a thrift shop. Inexplicably she spends some of the very little money she has, money she'd earmarked for her rent, on the coat and the lovely sparkling snowflake pin pinned to it. Throwing on the beautiful garment, she heads off to her job as a hotel valet, one of the small jobs she's taken to try and keep her head above water while she waits for her big break in the art world. When she stumbles across a 1960s era picture of a local heiress wearing what appears to be the same coat and pin, Anne is captivated and determined to uncover Sylvia Van Dam's story. In the picture, Sylvia is leaving her engagement party with her debonair fiance but there's something about the expression in her eyes, an unhappiness, that draws Anne to her story and she starts working on a collage series that could very well be the best thing she's ever produced.

Alternating with Anne's story is Sylvia's story and what's behind the look in her eyes. Orphaned at a young age, Sylvia is a shy and unassuming young woman. Even before her parents died, she never felt she measured up to expectations and her lack of confidence in herself is heartbreaking. When she meets the flashy and charismatic Ricardo, she is entranced, falling for him quickly and ignoring the warnings all of her nearest and dearest give her about his character. When those warnings turn out to be based in truth, catastrophe strikes and Sylvia runs from the consequences.

The novel starts with Sylvia on the run from a crime the reader knows was committed but doesn't yet understand. And its genesis will only become clear over the course of the novel. The chapters alternate between Anne in the present day and Sylvia in the 1960s. As Anne uncovers more about Sylvia's life through newspaper accounts of the time, the chapters centered on Sylvia flesh out this minimal information that Anne has read. And it is the mystery of this seemingly glamorous woman that inspires Anne in her work. Anne is still struggling, suffering from her own insecurities based on rejections from an uninspired and tradition bound gallery owner and the opinions of people who are, in truth, really only tangential to her world. She needs to learn to find an inherent internal value to herself and her art. In fact, her character is an odd combination of neediness and courage and the two didn't always mesh. Sylvia too needs to stop viewing herself through the eyes of others and recognize her own value. She is deserving of being loved, something that she only comes to appreciate in her flight and through the kindness of strangers. There are several romantic relationships in the novel, for both Anne and Sylvia, and they are rather flat and one dimensional feeling. The Sylvia story line felt much more historical than the 1960s; it almost had a Roaring Twenties air about it. The two different stories, Sylvia's disappearance and Anne's conflictedness about her life choices, were both compelling though and wondering how they'd come together keeps the reader turning the pages. The conclusion of the novel was too fast and a bit unfinished, especially given all the detail given in the beginning and middle of the novel. Full of issues like inspiration and its source, believing in yourself and creating your own happiness, learning courage, a reminder to look beneath the facade to find reality, and the grace of giving to others, over all, this was a fast and pleasurable read. ( )