These three iconic authors have teamed up and produced yet another fantastic piece of literary fiction spanning a century and told by the three female stars. If you love either of these authors and have not tried one of their collaborations yet. Do not let this get by.
Enjoy!
ISBN-13: 978-0063040748
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: 05-17-2022
Length: 400 pp
Source: Netgalley for review
Buy It: Publisher/ Amazon/ B&N/ IndieBound
ADD TO: GOODREADS
Overview:
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"An engrossing and sumptuous tale, this novel is a fantastic spring read." — Good Morning America
From the New York Times bestselling team of Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White—a novel of money and secrets set among the famous summer mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, spanning over a century from the Gilded Age to the present day.
“Three stories elegantly intertwine in this clever and stylish tale of murder and family lies…This crackerjack novel offers three mysteries for the price of one.”--Publishers Weekly (starred review"
2019: Andie Figuero has just landed her dream job as a producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular reality show about restoring America’s most lavish historic houses. Andie has high hopes for her latest project: the once glorious but gently crumbling Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island, summer resort of America’s gilded class—famous for the lavish “summer cottages” of Vanderbilts and Belmonts. But Andie runs into trouble: the reclusive heiress who still lives in the mansion, Lucia “Lucky” Sprague, will only allow the show to go forward on two conditions: One, nobody speaks to her. Two, nobody touches the mansion’s ruined boathouse.
1899: Ellen Daniels has been hired to give singing lessons to Miss Maybelle Sprague, a naive young Colorado mining heiress whose stepbrother John has poured their new money into buying a place among Newport’s elite. John is determined to see Maybelle married off to a fortune-hunting Italian prince, and Ellen is supposed to polish up the girl for her launch into society. But the deceptively demure Ellen has her own checkered past, and she’s hiding in plain sight at Sprague Hall.
1958: Lucia “Lucky” Sprague has always felt like an outsider at Sprague Hall. When she and her grandmother—the American-born Princess di Conti—fled Mussolini’s Italy, it seemed natural to go back to the imposing Newport house Nana owned but hadn’t seen since her marriage in 1899. Over the years, Lucky's lost her Italian accent and found a place for herself among the yachting set by marrying Stuyvesant Sprague, the alcoholic scion of her Sprague stepfamily. But one fateful night in the mansion’s old boathouse will uncover a devastating truth...and change everything she thought she knew about her past.
As the cameras roll on Mansion Makeover, the house begins to yield up the dark secrets the Spragues thought would stay hidden forever…
Read an excerpt:
Chapter One
Andie
Newport, Rhode Island
September 2019
By the time my ancient
Honda Civic and I made it across the Newport Bridge over the East Passage of
Narragansett Bay and past the bars and tired neighborhoods nearest the harbor,
it was clear I’d traveled more than just the thirty-three miles separating my
hometown of Cranston,
Rhode Island, from the coastal resort town
of Newport. As soon as I turned left on Ruggles Avenue and into the historic
neighborhood of Old Newport, it was as if I’d been dropped into another world;
the three-bedroom split-level where I’d grown up with my parents and sister—and
where I’d lived even after my mother had decamped for parts unknown—seemed a
distant memory from another life. I found myself holding my breath, as if
unwilling to allow the rarified air of this place to taint me. I’d seen it
happen.
I slowed as I reached Bellevue Avenue and took another
left, deciding at the last minute to take a brief tour to admire the palatial
summer cottages. The novelist Henry James had nicknamed the houses and called
Newport itself a breeding ground for White Elephants. He wasn’t wrong. First
impressions showed the grand scale of the sloping lawns and expansive views of
both the water and the town, the monoliths of stone and marble towering above
the sea cliffs like Zeus on
Mount Olympus, protected by hedges and iron fences. But with my trained eye as
an architectural historian, I spotted the signs of decay, of chipped paint and
sagging porticos, and sympathized with the burden of general maintenance and
leaky roofs.
The opulent Chateau-Sur-Mer dominated a
corner lot, its mishmash of architectural styles ranging from its original
Italian Renaissance to Second Empire French jarring to those of us who knew
better, but nonetheless stunningly gorgeous to the less informed. It had been
my mother’s favorite of all the Newport mansions, as she’d point out during our
frequent driving tours where she’d want to live if she ever had the money. I
detoured onto Narragansett to reach Ochre Point Avenue and glimpsed the famed
Vanderbilt mansion, The Breakers. I was reminded of the oft-quoted F. Scott
Fitzgerald, who’d once said, “The rich are different from us.” Hemingway’s
famous reply had been, “Yes. They have more money.” But even I knew it wasn’t
that simple.
Heading back to
Bellevue, I inched my way down the street, glad that Labor Day weekend and the
throngs of tourists were both gone so I was able to take my time without anyone
honking behind me. I had been told that the driveway I was looking for would be
hard to find, tucked between Marble House and Rosecliff, toward a less
significant house perched near a small curve of coast with the improbable name
of Sheep Point Cove.
I glanced down at the paper in my lap, the
directions scrawled in my nearly indecipherable handwriting from an earlier
phone call with my mentor and producer of Makeover Mansion, Marc Albertson. I frowned at the
irony of how my handwriting matched his slurred words, recalling the number of
times I’d had to ask him to repeat himself as I’d scribbled my notes.
I drove past the
driveway twice. Judging from the sparse peppering of small, dark stones strewn
over a mostly dirt drive, it was unsurprising that I’d missed it. I made the
turn, unsure of what I would find on the other side of the open gates, now rusted in place
and adorned with overgrown hedges and vines that brushed the roof and sides of
my car as I passed through.
The sight of work vans and the film crew milling around,
unloading equipment and unraveling cords, told me I was in the right place. As
if the missing gray slate roof tiles and chipped pilasters wouldn’t have been
enough. A late-model Volvo station wagon with Connecticut plates and a dusty
old Porsche 911 were parked on the lawn, but I instinctively knew that my Civic
didn’t belong next to them. Instead, I stopped my car at the end of the drive
beneath a drooping porte cochere, where I was greeted by the headless statue of
a well-endowed Roman god. Even his fig leaf had been worn away by time, in
seeming solidarity with the crumbling mansion.
The house whimpered from gentle neglect, which was always
better than the howling heard from houses with no hope of resurrection. A good
friend from grad school had once told me that old houses were like holding a piece
of history in one’s hand. I knew she was right, which is why I’d devoted my
career to saving them.
I exited my car and stepped out onto the weed-choked lawn,
filling my nostrils with the salty tang of ocean air and stretching my neck to
see above the third floor and count the number of chimneys. Viewers of Makeover Mansion always wanted to know that little
factoid, as if it had anything to do with the importance of historic
preservation or the perceived value of the structure. Not that the attitude
surprised me. Going into our second season, I’d received enough email from
viewers—and network heads—to understand that the general population was less
interested in historic paint colors and authentic wood floor refinishing and
more about modernizing kitchens and bathrooms for today’s living. And the proverbial
family skeletons hiding in musty closets. I found it all more than a little
bewildering.
I walked toward a
cluster of crew people, looking for Marc and then checking my phone again to
see if he’d called. Except for three missed calls from a number I didn’t recognize, there was
nothing. Not even a voicemail. Ignoring the spam calls, I dialed Marc’s number
and let it ring ten times before giving up. I shoved the phone in the back
pocket of my jeans and approached one of the men, a cameraman I knew from the
first season of Makeover Mansion, George Chirona. He was older than me—midthirties—with
muscled forearms and shoulders from hauling camera equipment all day. He gave
me a bear hug in greeting.
“Andie! Good to
see you. Any idea where Marc is? We’ve been waiting on him to get started.”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. I
spoke with him last night and he promised to be here before the crew to talk
with the family to go over the ground rules, and to get a preliminary tour.
That should have been more than an hour ago.” Our eyes met in mutual
understanding. “Let me see what I can do. Marc’s been the only liaison with the
family, but maybe they’ll be okay dealing with me in his absence.”
With a faked smile of confidence, I walked around to the front
of the house, my steps slowing as I realized the sheer size of the home and
tried to recall what little Marc had told me about the Sprague family. They’d
purchased the mansion from the original owners in 1899, around the same time
they’d changed the spelling of their last name from Spragg to the more
high-brow Sprague. They’d seized the opportunity after a huge scandal resulted
in a quick sale and renamed it Sprague Hall. Marc believed that sharing only
sparse details about each project made for more interesting viewing as
everything was as much a surprise to me as it was for the viewer—even though it
left me looking like an unprepared amateur. I’d been tempted to Google, but a
misplaced sense of loyalty to Marc always held me back.
I’d been tasked with the renovation of three major rooms in
the Italian Renaissance mansion for a network how-to reality show. All that
Marc had told me about the house’s history was that it had been built in 1884
for a short-lived robber baron who had lost all his money less than a decade
after he made it and who shot himself in shame. The house had been picked up by the Van Duyvils, an
old-money Knickerbocker family who couldn’t see their way to building one of
the tacky new mansions but didn’t mind picking one up cheap. But they’d had
their own dramatic meltdown (Marc had said something about murder and suicide,
not at this house, but at one of the Van Duyvils’ others, which meant that,
thank goodness, I wouldn’t have to deal with them on the program) and that was
when the house had fallen into the hands of the Sprague family. The Spragues
were new money and desperate to disguise it behind the facade of a Newport
mansion built to impress. Apparently Sprague senior had been pretty pissed
about Rosecliff being built next door, overshadowing his comparatively modest
palace (only thirty bedrooms). Mr. Sprague had accused the Nevada silver
heiress and her husband who had built Rosecliff of knocking off Sprague Hall,
just on a grander scale, even though, by all opinions, the Oelrichs were
not in the least aware of the existence of Mr. Sprague, or his inferior
mansion. As if there could be such a thing in Newport.
I climbed wide,
narrow steps toward the front terrace adorned with a colonnade on three sides,
then passed beneath three sweeping arches. Away from the bright sunlight, I
blinked in the relative dim shade of the entranceway and found myself staring
at two massive carved oak doors. I attempted to determine which was the main door and looked for a doorbell
before giving up and knocking on the one on the right.
Four large holes in the door made me wonder if there had
once been a door knocker at some point that had either fallen off or been
stolen. Or been removed and sold. Looking up at empty chains suspended over the
arch above me where an enormous lantern had undoubtedly once hung, I’d bet on
the latter.
While I waited, I
noted more signs of decay and the inevitable passage of time all structures
were forced to endure, especially those in which the cost of upkeep overtook the
funds needed to pay for it. Marc had explained that the elderly and reclusive
Lucia “Lucky” Sprague had agreed to a season of Makeover Mansion to
be filmed in her house for
this sole reason, but from his inability to meet my gaze when he told me so, I’d
been left to wonder otherwise.
Rosecliff and Kingscote, another white elephant, had been
bequeathed to the Preservation Society of Newport County in the early
seventies, complete with an income from a maintenance trust. I wondered why
Sprague Hall had not been similarly blessed. My thoughts dwelled on the long
list of tragedies that had plagued the estate and the families who’d lived in
it since it was built in 1884. I saw the chipping and sagging ruin of this once
graceful dame as one of the biggest tragedies of all.
I knocked again,
the sound swallowed within the thick wood of the door. I imagined most visitors
gave up and left after finding neither a doorbell to ring nor the staff to
answer a knock. If I didn’t need my job or the money it offered, I would have
done the same. Instead, I took a deep breath, and turned the brass door handle,
not all that surprised to feel it give and the door swing open on protesting
hinges.
“Hello?” I called
out.
The first thing I noticed was the heaviness of the air, an
atmosphere of neglect and abandonment like the opening of an ancient crypt. I
left the door open, hoping the crisp ocean breezes would dilute the
oppressiveness and allow any restless spirits roaming among the dust motes to
depart.
The second thing I
noticed was the sheer magnitude of the space, the soaring fifty-foot ceilings
and Caen limestone walls, the heavy cornices of plaster and gilt. The painted
ceiling, depicting what might have been Poseidon taking control of the sea from
Zeus, but whose once vibrant colors had faded, had great patches missing,
presumably having long since taken a suicidal plunge to the marble floor below.
While working on my historic preservation degree and in my
job as architectural historian, I’d seen plenty of large houses. But this was
on a scale of Newport proportions: bloated, gilded, and overelaborate.
Considering it had been built to mimic the Renaissance palaces of Turin and Genoa, it wasn’t a
complete surprise. The total absence of furniture and accessories was.
“Hello?” I called
again, hearing the echo of my words and the faint cadence of voices coming from
somewhere deep in the house. I followed the sound through the great hall,
passing rooms whose uses had long since gone extinct from modern houses, but
which pulled to me with a nostalgia felt only by those like me who loved old
houses and all their quirks.
By the time I
reached the unadorned back hallways, I knew I’d found the area of the servants’
domain and possibly the kitchen—one of the rooms I’d been tasked with
renovating.
As I approached a brightly lit room at the end of a
hallway, the voices of a man and a woman got louder. Even though their voices
weren’t raised, it was clear by their clipped words that seemed to get shorter
and shorter that they were arguing.
“Really, Luke,”
the woman’s voice carried down the hall. “You need to exercise your power of
attorney now before this ridiculous TV show is allowed to happen. It’s not too
late. You simply have to convince Lucky that she needs to sell this albatross
to some Russian oligarch or tech millionaire—they’re the only ones who can
afford a place like this anymore. It’s ridiculous to hold on to it and continue
to live in it while it collapses around her—especially when she never even
leaves her rooms! I will be more than happy to find a gorgeous retirement
community for her.”
“No,” came the male voice, presumably Luke’s. “She signed
the contract and is mentally competent.
As her power of attorney, it’s my job to
make sure that we abide by her wishes—not ours.”
I stopped in the
doorway of a bright kitchen taken straight from a fifties home-décor magazine,
complete with black-and-white-check laminate floors, turquoise cabinets, and
Formica countertops. Large windows framed the room, explaining the brightness,
leaving me at a momentary disadvantage as the two occupants were backlit from
the sunshine, the
light aimed directly at me as if I were in an interrogation.
I took a step into
the room, unwilling to accept the disadvantage.
The woman spoke, her accent polished New England, her
bobbed hair Grace Kelly–blond, her clothes undoubtedly designer. “I’m Hadley
Sprague-Armstrong. Who are you?” Her icy pale blue eyes swept over me, quickly
taking in my dark hair, olive skin, crew neck cotton sweater from Target, and
the Sperry Top-Siders I’d found at a garage sale while in college. Telling her
my name would simply cement her snap first impression: not WASP and lacking
funds. Both of which were correct.
“I’m Andrea Figuero, the show host for Makeover Mansion. The producer, Marc Albertson, and the
crew call me Andie.” I knew better than to offer a hand to shake. My gaze
traveled between Hadley and Luke, their remarkable physical similarities
identifying them as siblings, as I attempted to determine which of them was in
charge. Luke appeared to be around the same age as his sister, about thirty,
with sun-streaked light brown hair. His khaki shorts and button-down oxford
cloth shirt with rolled-up sleeves exposing tanned forearms was a uniform I
knew all too well. The fact that he wore sunglasses inside and reeked of stale
beer made me dismiss him out of hand. Turning back to Hadley, I said, “Speaking
of Marc, have you seen him?”
Her lips
tightened. “No, we haven’t. My brother and I were just discussing the show.
Since our grandmother has changed her mind . . .”
“No, she hasn’t,”
Luke said, wearily pulling off his sunglasses, revealing blue eyes the same icy
shade as his sister’s. Except his were bloodshot and his cheek wore a smear of
lipstick, making me dislike him even more. “But Marc isn’t here. I got up early
to meet with him so I’m more than a little annoyed. He didn’t say anything
about sending an underling.”
I bristled at his dismissive tone, but knew I had to hold
on to my temper. I needed this job too badly. Forcing a neutral expression, I
said, “Since Marc’s
not here, I’d like to go ahead and do a quick tour of the three rooms scheduled
for the renovation. I want to get the crew inside to film preliminary before
shots so we can get started on that today.”
Luke was already walking
toward a back door. Over his shoulder, he said, “Hadley, I’m sure you can
handle that. I’m meeting friends at the club. It’s too nice a day to be wasting
time indoors instead of out on the water.”
He belonged to a
yacht club. Of course. As if I needed yet another reason to dislike him.
“I really don’t
think . . . ,” Hadley began to protest.
He opened the door just as Hadley’s phone rang. She held up
her hand to prevent Luke from leaving as she answered the call. After a short
conversation, she tossed her phone into her large bag. “Sorry to disappoint,
but I’ve got to go. The stationers have completely messed up Emmeline’s fourth
birthday party invitations. The font is not at all what I wanted and they can’t
seem to understand the problem. It’s hopeless. I’ve got to go straighten it
out. You’re on your own, Brother.” She let her cool gaze slip to me. “Goodbye,
Adrienne. I doubt I’ll be seeing you again. Despite what my brother thinks,
this arrangement is not going to work.”
“We’ll talk
later,” Luke said through gritted teeth as he held the door open for his
sister.
“It’s Andrea,” I
called to her departing back, unwilling to let her have the last word.
Luke’s mouth slanted upward in a reluctant and fleeting
smile. “I guess I’m stuck with you.” He glanced at his watch. “If we hurry, I
can still make it. Hope you can walk fast. Just stay close so you don’t get
lost.”
At an almost run,
I followed him through opulent rooms redolent of their former glory with
sculpted fireplaces, faded and peeling wall murals, missing chandeliers, and
threadbare rugs. Yet the scope and elegance remained, a ghost of a curious past
I was eager to uncover. And
perhaps help to regain its lost beauty and relevance. It’s why I’d been
attracted to historic preservation in the first place.
I followed Luke through back passageways I knew I’d never
find again to the ballroom, the wall murals showing empty spots and loose wires
where sconces should have hung. A threadbare sofa sat in one corner, the
cushions sagging in the middle.
“Where is all the furniture—” I began,
interrupted by my phone ringing.
“Excuse me,” I
said, still running behind Luke as I spoke. “This must be Marc.” I answered it
without looking at the screen, not wanting to trip or lose sight of Luke and be
lost forever. “Where are you?” I hissed.
“Miss Figuero?
I was about to ask you the same thing. I’ve been trying to reach you all
morning.”
I didn’t recognize
the woman’s voice but recalled the multiple phone calls from the same number
I’d seen on my screen earlier and had assumed were spam. “I’m sorry, who is
this?”
“This is Roberta
Montemurno, Petey’s first grade teacher. You were signed up to bring the snack
for today. Can I hope it will be here within the next hour?”
Shit. “Yes.
Of course. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I forgot. . . .”
“No worries. As long as they get here in
time. I’m sure you can imagine what fifteen disappointed first graders can be
like.”
“Not really, but—”
“Thank you,
Miss Figuero.” She clicked off.
Luke, having
finally paused, looked at me with annoyance. “One minute,” I said, already
dialing my dad. He picked up on the first ring.
“Dad, I need you
to run to Price Right and pick up two dozen cupcakes from the bakery section
and take them to Petey’s school. Nut and gluten free. I completely forgot.”
His heavy sigh
rumbled through the phone. “All right. I’ll take care of it. But it’s going to
cost you.”
“Gin rummy or
pinochle?”
“Your pick.”
I heard his grin
through his words. “Done. See you when you get home.”
“Thanks, Dad.
You’re the best.”
“I know.”
I hung up, my
smile fading as I looked at Luke, who didn’t bother to hide his impatience. “If
you’re done chatting, can we continue the tour?”
I wanted to correct him and say that making me chase him at
breakneck speed through a sixty-thousand-square-foot mansion was more like a
marathon than a tour but bit my tongue. I followed him through another maze of
passageways until I found myself crossing the great hall from another
direction, then heading up the main staircase to the second-floor gallery. Its
bronze and wrought iron railings were still intact as was the stained-glass
skylight overhead. A faded spot on the wall indicated where a tapestry might
have once hung. I wanted to ask Luke what had happened to it and all of the
other missing pieces in the house, but I was afraid I already knew. I would ask
Marc.
We walked down a
long hallway over patched and frayed formerly red carpet to a doorway near the
end. Luke turned the handle and stepped back, allowing me to go first.
“Maybelle’s bedroom. I believe this is the third room in addition to the kitchen
and ballroom in our contract.”
“Yes,” I said,
curious as to who Maybelle was, and why the décor in this particular room was
at odds with that in the rest of the house. Before I had time to study it or
ask questions, I was dragged back down the main staircase and out through the
front door from which I’d arrived.
I was out of
breath from the running, and it took me two attempts to speak. “Do you have a
floor plan? I need to direct the crew, but I have no idea if I can find those
rooms again.” “You’ll figure it out.” He glanced at his watch again. “I’ve got
to go.” He began
walking toward the parked 911 as I jogged along beside him, my legs no match
for his long strides. Luke continued: “In case Marc hasn’t drilled this into
you already, there are three stipulations for allowing the filming here. The
first is that no one attempts to speak with our grandmother, Lucia Sprague. Her
rooms are on the third floor and very private. She prefers to keep them that
way. No one is to go up there. The second is that absolutely no filming is to
be allowed in or around the boathouse.”
“But . . .”
I wanted him to slow down, to tell me why. I’d never been the sort of person to
blindly follow directions. I always wanted to have a reason. “Those are the
rules. Break them, and the deal is off.” He opened the driver’s door and slid
in.
“What’s the third
rule?”
“No one from the
family is to be in any camera shot, including me. I live here, and I don’t want
to be disturbed.” He shut the door before I could suggest he invest in a pair
of earplugs because shooting started at eight A.M.
The engine rumbled as he put the car into gear, then he sped away, churning up
dirt and what little loose gravel was left on the drive.
I took a deep breath, trying unsuccessfully to calm my
anger, and found myself looking down the lawn in the direction of the water,
where the boathouse would be located. Luke had said we couldn’t film there. But he hadn’t said I couldn’t
actually go there.
Still smarting at being so easily dismissed, I made the quick decision just to
take a peek at the forbidden boathouse. After telling George and the rest of
the crew that I’d be right back and to be on the lookout for Marc, I began
walking briskly toward the water.
I’d barely gone twenty
feet before the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the inescapable
feeling of being watched swept over me. I wheeled around, wondering if Luke had
returned. The drive was empty. My gaze traveled up the Indiana limestone wall
of the house to the
row of third-floor windows. I squinted, wondering if the shadow of a woman was
a figment of my fertile imagination. It was too far for me to see details, but
I felt sure that dark, piercing eyes were staring down at me. I blinked, and
the shadow disappeared, leaving only the slight movement of a curtain.
A cloud briefly obscured the sun. I didn’t believe in omens
or portents of doom, but I felt strongly that I was being urged to retrace my
steps and return to the crew. I walked quickly, the surety of a direct gaze
aimed at my back following me until I turned the corner.
My Review:
The Lost Summers of Newport
Karen White, Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig
The latest team effort from White, Williams and Willig is
an exceptional piece of literary fiction featuring three strong females and
spanning over a century from the late 1800s to present day highlighting the
secrets, lies, consequences and buried bodies surrounding one Newport RI
mansion. These storytellers are all masters of their art, drawing their
audience right inside the story, keeping them turning pages with their tightly
plotted interweaving tales. The main protagonists are all fabulous and readers
will have a hard time picking favorites and the secondary characters both good
and not so good are utterly unforgettable. The story is seamless and only
long-time fans will know who created whom because of the obvious name dropping
interlaced within the stories. The narrative flows beautifully and compliments
the period it reflects and the backdrops are out of this world and over the top
displaying the extravagances of the well to dos of Newport past and present.
Fans of any of these award- winning authors, amazing historical fiction and/or
strong female protagonists will have a hard time putting this read down.
In 1899 Ellen Daniels is running from her past and the
dangerous people that are looking for her. She luckily lands a job teaching
music to Maybelle Sprague, a naïve young Newport heiress whose stepbrother is
husband shopping for her and just placed an Italian Prince in his cart. Now all
Ellen has to do is keep her head down, do her job and help her charge land her
Prince.
When Italy fell to the fascists the American heiress turned
Italian Princess di Conte escaped with the clothes on her back her beloved
granddaughter Lucia and a locked steamer trunk and returned to her birthright
Sprague Hall in Newport RI. Now it’s 1958 and Lucky (Lucia) is all grown up and
has had it with her philandering husband. She owes it to her slightly senile
nonna and her daughter Joanie to stay in this crumbling mansion but the cost
just might be her own sanity.
In present day Newport Rhode Island historic preservationist
Andrea (Andie) Figuero arrives at a once grande dame now just another decaying
Newport great home to start filming the second season of the reality show
Makeover Mansion. She should be excited because this is her bread and butter
but lately the show’s producers want more reality ie family skeletons falling
out of closets and less historic conservancy in the show. Her hopes of meeting
the enigmatic matriarch, Lucky Sprague is quickly slipping through her fingers
when she realizes she’s got to tell the family the show is now more about
digging up family dirt than replacing wallpaper.
With more than 1.8 million books in print in eight different languages, Karen White is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 23 novels, including the popular Charleston-set Tradd Street mystery series.
Raised in a house full of brothers, Karen’s love of books and strong female characters first began in the third grade when the local librarian issued her a library card and placed The Secret of the Old Clock, a Nancy Drew Mystery, in her hands.
Lauren Willig is the New York Times bestselling author of nineteen works of historical fiction. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages, awarded the RITA, Booksellers Best and Golden Leaf awards, and chosen for the American Library Association's annual list of the best genre fiction. After graduating from Yale University, she embarked on a PhD in History at Harvard before leaving academia to acquire a JD at Harvard Law while authoring her "Pink Carnation" series of Napoleonic-set novels. She lives in New York City, where she now writes full time.
This sounds well done and I like the three threads and span.
ReplyDeleteit was Kim. I know you would enjoy it
DeleteYou remind me that I really need to read this one. Great review, Debbie!
ReplyDeleteyes you do and thanks ;-)
DeleteThey are such clever writers and their books together are great. You are enticing me to this one.
ReplyDeletethanks for your kind words and you're welcome
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really well done. It is neat when several authors come together to tell a story.
ReplyDeleteOh and Carole these authors mesh so well together if you didn't know it was a collaboration you'd think it was penned by one author
Delete