Upon return to New York, she embarks on a new course planning to buy and renovate a crumbling wreck of a house, Liefdehuis in Hyde Park, and write a book about it that would appeal to the emerging middle class of people looking to improve their own homes. In Paris she found she has a talent for interior design and writing. He at least had the good grace to get murdered, but even that event didn't free Alva.īut Alva isn't one to stay down for long. For 10 years she endured and finally she left him only to be pilloried in the press and disgraced. Disgraced, married off, taken to Paris, and abused. Ava Webster was a product of the upper social classes and when, at 17 with her life just beginning, she becomes a victim of a man who wanted nothing more than her money. But the class system was still in full control of the wealth and with that the social rules.

New York City in the Gilded Age of 1875 was a marvelous time of scientific advancement and turning this country from the agricultural age into the industrial age.

He was a wonderful character and very much the grounding that the heroine needed. She is very complicated and very much a product of her upbringing and the 1875 time period. I can't say I liked the heroine, although I did understand her. I thought I was getting a ghost gothic and got something much more. Is a gorgeous debut by Diana Biller, with a darkly Victorian Gothic flair and an intrepid and resilient American heroine guaranteed to delight readers.Very interesting plot as well as time period and setting. Set during the Gilded Age in New York City, Together, the two delve into the tragic secrets wreathing Alva's new home while Sam attempts to unlock Alva's history―and her heart. Unfortunately, though Alva is loath to admit it, Sam, a pioneer in electric lighting and a member of the nationally-adored Moore family of scientists, is the only one who can help. She doesn't need any more complications in her life―especially not a handsome, convention-flouting, scandal-raising one like Sam. So when the eccentric and brilliant professor Samuel Moore appears and informs her that he can get to the bottom of the mystery that surrounds Liefdehuis, she turns him down flat. However, fresh starts aren't as easy as they seem, as Alva discovers when stories of a haunting at Liefdehuis begin to reach her. Now his sudden death allows her to return to New York to make a fresh start, restoring Liefdehuis, a dilapidated Hyde Park mansion, and hopefully her reputation at the same time. It's 1875, and Alva Webster has perfected her stiff upper lip after three years of being pilloried in the presses of two continents over fleeing her abusive husband.

** A 'MOST ANTICIPATED ROMANCE' of 2019 (Ī young widow restores a dilapidated mansion with the assistance of a charming, eccentric genius, only to find the house is full of dangerous secrets in this effervescent Gilded Age romantic comedy debut

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller