While I write Appalachian historical fiction, I’ve spent my non-writing career in marketing and fundraising. That includes a dream job in the public relations department at Biltmore Estate from 2000-2006. It was a thrill for me to spend time in America’s largest privately owned home, learning about and sharing the estate’s amazing history. And while you just can’t beat the actual history, who wouldn’t have fun building a story around a French chateau in the Appalachian mountains? In writing my own Biltmore novel, I read others set there as well and found some true gems!
I love a good dual timeline novel, and Pepper Basham has the perfect touch.
Now throw in a bookstore that may have to close, a lost now found love letter, and a trip to England, and I’m absolutely hooked! Oh, and did I mention that the 1915 timeline characters flirt via notes left in books in the library at Biltmore House? Swoon.
Uncover the Story Behind a One-Hundred-Year-Old Love Letter
Walk through Doors to the Past via a new series of historical stories of romance and adventure. Clara Blackwell helps her mother manage a struggling one-hundred-year old family bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina, but the discovery of a forgotten letter opens a mystery of a long-lost romance and undiscovered inheritance which could save its future. Forced to step outside of her predictable world, Clara embarks on an adventure with only the name Oliver as a hint of the man's identity in her great-great-grandmother's letter. From the nearby grand estate of the Vanderbilts,…
In my time working at Biltmore, I often thought visitors tended to overlook Edith Vanderbilt. I love how Kristy Woodson Harvey celebrates Edith’s intelligence, tenacity, and determination in this novel.
Of course, I’m also a sucker for a family heirloom, and the veil passed down through the generations is the perfect hook for this fun and entertaining story.
This "masterfully woven...literary home run" (New York Journal of Books) follows four women across generations, bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family from the New York Times bestselling author of the Peachtree Bluff series.
Four women. One family heirloom. A secret connection that will change their lives-and history as they know it.
Present Day: Julia Baxter's wedding veil, bequeathed to her great-grandmother by a mysterious woman on a train in the 1930s, has passed through generations of her family as a symbol of a happy marriage. But on the morning of her wedding…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
Reading this book is like going on a guided, behind-the-scenes tour of Biltmore—led by an actual member of the staff!
I so enjoyed this authentic look at the “downstairs” side of Biltmore House. It’s a fun, light romance with just enough twists and turns to keep me turning pages even though I was reasonably certain it was all going to work out in the end ;)
When I worked at Biltmore, I was intrigued by a photograph showing the chateau under construction with a ramshackle house still standing in the foreground.
Who lived in that house? Were they still there? How did George Vanderbilt go about acquiring that property? Joy Jordan-Lake digs into a variation on that theme with this story of a young woman called home to Appalachia from the big city to help her family—one of the last hold-outs as Vanderbilt scoops up land.
I found Jordan-Lake’s exploration of the people around the construction of Biltmore fascinating and engaging.
"Crawdads meets the Crawleys...Threaded through with a meticulously researched, well-crafted mystery, this is historical fiction at its best." -Fiona Davis, nationally bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue
From the bestselling author of A Tangled Mercy comes an enthralling novel of secrets, a tumultuous war of ideas, and murder as classes collide in the shadow of Biltmore House.
Biltmore House, a palatial mansion being built by the Vanderbilts, American "royalty," is in its final stages of construction in North Carolina. The country's grandest example of privilege, it symbolizes the aspirations of its owner and the dreams of a girl,…
Seven years ago, a hidden betrayal scattered three friends living in the shadow of Biltmore Estate. Now, when Biltmore Industries master weaver Lorna Blankenship is commissioned to create an original design for Cornelia Vanderbilt's 1924 wedding, she panics knowing she doesn't have the creativity needed. But there's an elusive artisan…
This is the story behind the story of Biltmore Estate.
I was so impressed with Denise Kiernan’s research and her engaging way of presenting the facts. While this isn’t a novel, I found it read like one, offering deep insight into the people and circumstances that helped shape America’s largest privately owned home.
A New York Times bestseller with an “engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold true story of the Biltmore Estate—the largest private home in America—and the remarkable woman who helped ensure its survival.
The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.
Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage…
When my editor suggested I set a novel at Biltmore House—a chateau in western North Carolina—I laughed and asked him if he’d read my books. How would I work an American castle into my stories about the everyday people of Appalachia?
But wait. Having worked in the PR department at the estate for six years, I’d picked up a few things. Like the fact that George and Edith Vanderbilt championed Biltmore Estate Industries—a program to train youth in traditional skills like woodcarving and weaving. I had my in. This is a story about a master weaver who makes a desperate decision that haunts her for years. And how that decision leads her to weave the perfect gift for Cornelia Vanderbilt’s 1924 wedding.
