Jazzy historical fiction

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1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.
 
2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right—if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting...
 

I heard such great things about this book and went in with high hopes in loving it.
At first the 1925 timeline was more interesting and kept me wanting to read and the 2015 timeline wasn’t as engaging to me. Then about halfway through the more recent timeline got more interesting and took on a mystery tone. This is when I really started to engage with the book and wanted to know what would happen. And I really enjoyed how the book ended.
I also liked how Sawyer was a male talking to an older female. In a lot of HF dual timelines it’s both women main characters.