As May arrives with early summer sun to gild the emerging roses, we’ll look this month at novels highlighting the Gilded Age, where fabulous, as-yet-uncontrolled wealth coexists with the dire poverty of immigrants, subsistence farmers and factory workers.
We begin with a duo of linked novels by Donna Russo Morin. The first, GILDED SUMMERS: A NOVEL (NEWPORT’S GILDED AGE BOOK 1) focuses on the friendship between two girls, Pearl, daughter of wealth, and Ginevra, an immigrant from Italy who becomes a maid and seamstress in Pearl’s luxurious Newport, R.I. mansion. Though the two quickly bond over their dreams—Pearl, to be an artist, Ginevra, to become a clothing designer--they must keep their friendship hidden from Pearl’s autocratic mother, whose goal is for her daughter to make a suitable marriage to a rich man of their class. As they grow older, they continue to support each other, even as their friendship is tested by their attraction to the same young men. Filled with gossipy details of life among the upper classes, the fictional character’s lives enriched by the inclusion of actual Newport residents like Tessie Oehlrich, Mamie Fish, and Alva and Consuelo Vanderbilt as well as highlighting historical events of the time, Morin’s novel details the trials, mistakes, heartache and growth of two young women determined to hold on to their dreams.
The story continues in GILDED DREAMS: A NOVEL (NEWPORT’S GILDED AGE BOOK 2.) It’s April 1912; Pearl and Ginevra are now college graduates, professional women, wives and mothers when Pearl learns of the death of her parents in the sinking of the Titanic. If this loss weren’t tragic enough, she discovers at the reading of the will that as a married woman, inheritance laws give all her family’s wealth and property not to her, but to her husband. Supported in her grief and outrage at this injustice by Ginevra, Pearl discovers an unexpected ally in Alma Vanderbilt Belmont. Alma invites the friends to a meeting of the women’s suffrage movement, and the two friends quickly become involved in the fight for justice for women—a fight which was led and funded by several of the Society doyennes of Newport, led by Alma. The two friends carry the battle on through the beginning of World War I, when with so many men going to fight, necessity allows the opening of more jobs and opportunities for women. To reach their goals, they must combat the prejudice of both men and women who believe the suffragettes are abandoning a woman’s true place, a struggle that will sometimes put their very lives in danger. Full of fascinating details about the suffragette movement, set against the rich background of Newport and a country on the brink of war, Morin’s second volume brings Pearl and Ginevra’s story full circle.
UNDER A GILDED MOON—A NOVEL by Joy Jordan-Lake takes us to another venue of the rich and famous, though this case deals with just one family, the Vanderbilts, and one place, Biltmore House in North Carolina. The author paints a nuanced picture of the struggle between the desire of wealthy Vanderbilt to build his magical country retreat, which will provide jobs and bring investment into a poverty-stricken area, and the poor but fiercely proud Appalachian subsistence farmers whose land he wants to acquire. Possessed of a rich culture, resisting parting with land their families have owned for generations but which can barely support them, some are willing to sell; some stubbornly resist. Along with the real Vanderbilt and many of the estate staff based on real people, Jordan-Lake brings this struggle to life in the fictional character of Kerry MacGregor. Daughter of one of the poor farm families who wins a scholarship to college in New York, Kerry must give up college and return home to care for her ailing father and twin siblings. Her family is one of the last holdouts who don’t want to sell their land, but to support them, Kerry is forced to take a job at the mansion, where she is drawn into trying to solve a murder. Jordan-Lake’s story includes a rich selection of characters--estate workers and guests invited for the grand opening, a debutante trying to escape scandal, two fugitive Italian immigrants, a reporter looking for a scandalous story, and more. Her novel highlights many of the problems that still afflict society: the conflicting needs of rich and poor, prejudice against immigrants and those “different” from a region’s prevailing demographic, the powerful against the powerless. Infused with rich details about the culture and values of the Appalachian residents, the novel weaves a broad tapestry that, in looking at the building of one amazing mansion, acts as a mirror of the ills and challenges of the whole society.
We’ll finish our selections with a book that doesn’t have “gilded” in the title, THE ENGLISH WIFE by Lauren Willig, a story that alternates between past and present. On the night of the Twelfth Night costume ball held at Illyria, a recreation of the Tudor manor in England at which Annabelle grew up, her husband Bayard is found murdered, a jeweled dagger in his chest. Annabelle disappears, her shoes found on the banks of the Hudson River, and is presumed drowned. Grieving, concerned for the welfare of the couple’s three-year-old twins, Bay’s sister Janie is determined to solve the murder, enlisting the help of newspaperman James Burke. The story is told in alternating points of view between Janie and Annabelle, also called Georgie, who gives the background of meeting Bay during his Grand Tour at a theatre where she was an actress. As Janie and Burke penetrate deeper into the story, Janie begins to questions everything she thought she knew about her brother and his mysterious English wife. Full of rich detail about the Old Knickerbocker society of New York and the clothes, jewels and rigidly controlling rules of Gilded Age aristocrats like Janie’s mother, Willig’s mystery intertwines romance and intrigue to keep the reader guessing until the very end.
Ready to spend a few hours among the rich and famous? Select the gilding of your choice and enjoy!
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
Award-winning romance author Julia Justiss, who has written more than thirty historical novels and novellas set in the English Regency and the American West, just completed her first contemporary series set in the fictional Hill Country town of Whiskey River, Texas.
A voracious reader who began jotting down plot ideas for Nancy Drew novels in her third grade spiral, Julia has published poetry and worked as a business journalist.
She and her husband live in East Texas, where she continues to craft the stories she loves. Check her website for details about her books, chat with her on social media, and follow her on Bookbub and Amazon to receive notices about her latest releases.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy