Arts • Literature
January 18, 2021
Asheville, NC
What better way to escape troubled times than with historical fiction—and a story with a regional setting at that? Joy Jordan-Lake’s newest book, Under a Gilded Moon, visits Biltmore and the age of the Vanderbilts.
Book Feature: Under A Gilded Moon
The Laurel of Asheville
Joy Jordan-Lake, Author
“This novel involves intrigue, suspense, mystery, historical detail—all elements I hope will help readers curl up by a fire and slip into another world for a time,” Jordan-Lake says, “and maybe learn about some events and characters in history you’ve never heard of before.”
Though living in her native Tennessee now, she spent summers, while growing up, in NC’s mountains and worked for camps in Black Mountain and Brevard during college and graduate school.
“I’ve long had a fascination with the Biltmore Estate, but it wasn’t until I began reading more about the tensions between the Gilded Age wealth and the Appalachian farmers that a main character, Kerry MacGregor, a young woman who lives in both worlds, began to take shape,” she says.
Her research involved much reading, many trips to Biltmore and the region and delving into archives at Pack Memorial Library. Pandemic conditions offer good, uninterrupted writing time, Jordan-Lake says, but a challenge to marketing.
"Thank heavens for Zooming book clubs, Bookstagrammers, bloggers and social media in general (never thought I’d say that),” she says. “I’ve so missed seeing old and new friends in person for book launches and signings. But it’s good for all of us to learn how to connect with each other online.”
Under a Gilded Moon, December, 2020, historical fiction, hardcover, $24.95, by Joy Jordan-Lake, and published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle, WA. For recent or upcoming virtual appearances, or to order the book, visit JoyJordanLake.com.
About Under a Gilded Moon
Behind the Scenes of the Novel
About Joy Jordan Lake
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