William Morrow
July 2016
On Sale: June 26, 2016
Featuring: Octavian Rofrano; Mrs. Theresa Marshall
460 pages ISBN: 0062404954 EAN: 9780062404954 Kindle: B00Z751AWA Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
The bestselling author of A Hundred Summers brings
the Roaring Twenties brilliantly to life in this
enchanting and compulsively readable tale of intrigue,
romance, and scandal in New York Society, brimming with lush
atmosphere, striking characters, and irresistible charm.
As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, the
iridescent Mrs. Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue and
Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable: she’s
fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian
Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An
intense and deeply honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the
beautiful socialite of a certain age and wants to marry her.
While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce
for a woman of Theresa’s wealth and social standing is out
of the question, and there is no need; she has an
understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected
philanderer husband.
But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor
brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger
daughter of a newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a
longstanding family tradition, Theresa enlists the Boy to
act as her brother’s cavalier, presenting the family’s
diamond rose ring to Ox’s intended, Miss Sophie
Fortescue—and to check into the background of the
little-known Fortescue family. When Octavian meets Sophie,
he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue, even as he
uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of
Theresa, Octavian, and Sophie progresses, it transforms into
a saga of divided loyalties, dangerous revelations, and
surprising twists that will lead to a shocking transgression
. . . and eventually force Theresa to make a bittersweet choice.
Full of the glamour, wit and delicious twists that are the
hallmarks of Beatriz Williams’ fiction and alternating
between Sophie’s spirited voice and Theresa’s vibrant
timbre, A Certain Age is a beguiling
reinterpretation of Richard Strauss’s comic opera Der
Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping decadence of
Gatsby’s New York.