First published 2022
Julia Baxter stands in her wedding dress on what should be the happiest day of her life. The family wedding veil that brought luck to generations of brides feels different this morning. Something tells her that even its magic cannot save her marriage. She abandons her wedding and escapes to the Virgin Islands to think. Her grandmother Babs faces her own crossroads after her husband's death. Moving to a retirement community, she encounters an old flame who stirs up feelings from decades past. In 1914, Edith Vanderbilt struggles to maintain the massive Biltmore Estate after losing her husband. With 250 rooms and an entire village depending on her family, she fights to preserve the Vanderbilt name despite mounting financial troubles. Her daughter Cornelia feels torn between family duty and her dreams of life beyond Asheville's society pages. Four women separated by time discover their lives connect through one mysterious wedding veil that links them to America's most famous family.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Asheville, Biltmore Estate, Virgin Islands
Period: 1914, 21st-century
1 pages · Audio CD · Blackstone Publishing