Under a Gilded Moon
Book Feature - Under a Gilded Moon by Joy Jordan-Lake
HBL Note: Joy Jordan-Lake and I connected over our PhDs (hers is in 19th cen. English Lit), dogs, books, and Chicago. We’ve been following each other for several months now…ever since Suzy of Suzy Approved Book Tours introduced us. If you took one look at that book cover and thought to yourself, “Look at that historic fashion on the cover, I bet Ashley was smitten with this book before she even read about it.” Then you’d be correct. Which is why I’ll be featuring an author interview AND a book jacket designer feature over the next few days. In the meantime, read all about Under a Gilded Moon below.
From the publisher:
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, just as driven, who lives in its shadow.
Kerry MacGregor’s future is derailed when, after two years in college in New York City, family obligations call her home to the beautiful Appalachians. She is determined to distance herself from the opulence she sees rising in the Blue Ridge Mountains, however close its reach. Her family’s land is among the last pieces required to complete the Biltmore Estate. But something more powerful than an ambitious Vanderbilt heir could change Kerry’s fate as, one by one, more outsiders descend on the changing landscape—a fugitive from Sicily, a reporter chasing a groundbreaking story, a debutante tainted by scandal, and a conservationist prepared to put anyone at risk to stoke the resentment of the locals.
As Kerry finds herself caught in a war between wealth and poverty, innocence and corruption, she must navigate not only her own pride and desperation to survive but also the temptations of fortune and the men who control it.