Dual-timeline historical fiction following the lives of two estranged sisters, once the most famous performers in midcentury Halifax, who now must come together to save their beloved theatre from ruin.

We were stars standing in tall shadows every night at the Majestic Theatre.

1939. Majestic Melly is one of Halifax, Nova Scotia's biggest It Girls. As one half of the all-singing, all-dancing Majestic Sisters duo, she knows she's poised for stardom— she just needs to get off the stage of the Majestic Theatre, where she performs nightly with her sister, Missy, and find a way to Hollywood. As the curtains close on the decade, Melly disappears from the seaside city, missing Missy's wedding and leaving her sister heartbroken, and winds up on the front pages of international newspapers a few days later with Clark Gable.

1963. Melly Calvert, Hollywood's box office queen, learns that her beloved Majestic Theatre is closing its doors. After nearly twenty-five years of estrangement between the legendary Majestic Sisters, Melly returns home to convince her socialite sister, now the wife of Halifax's most successful hotelier, to try and help her save it. But old wounds are still fresh, and as the clock ticks toward the new year, the Majestic Theatre—and the Majestic Sisters—are in danger of disappearing forever.

Suffused with backstage gossip and cinematic history, and written in the style of a tell-all Old Hollywood autobiography, The Majestic Sisters is an authentic and stirring portrait of sibling rivalry during the Golden Age of Cinema and an impeccably drawn portrait of mid-century Halifax that will appeal to fans of Beatriz Williams and Brooke Lea Foster.

Jessica Ilse is a communications professional who moonlights as a freelance writer. She lives in Halifax by way of Cape Sable Island, and has a journalism degree from the University of King's College. The Majestic Sisters is her first novel.

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