Synopsis

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 day, something tells her that even the veil’s good luck isn’t enough to make her marriage last forever. Overwhelmed and panicked, she escapes to the Virgin Islands to clear her head. Meanwhile, her grandmother Babs is also feeling shaken. Still grieving the death of her beloved husband, she decides to move out of the house they once shared and into a retirement community. Though she hopes it’s a new beginning, she does not expect to run into an old flame, dredging up the same complicated emotions she felt a lifetime ago.

1914: Socialite Edith Vanderbilt is struggling to manage the luxurious Biltmore Estate after the untimely death of her cherished husband. With 250 rooms to oversee and an entire village dependent on her family to stay afloat, Edith is determined to uphold the Vanderbilt legacy—and prepare her free-spirited daughter Cornelia to inherit it—in spite of her family’s deteriorating financial situation. But Cornelia has dreams of her own. Asheville, North Carolina has always been her safe haven away from the prying eyes of the press, but as she explores more of the rapidly changing world around her, she’s torn between upholding tradition and pursuing the exciting future that lies beyond Biltmore’s gilded gates.

In the vein of Therese Anne Fowler’s A Well-Behaved Woman and Jennifer Robson’s The Gown, The Wedding Veil brings to vivid life a group of remarkable women forging their own paths—and explores the mystery of a national heirloom lost to time.

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Review

A blend of the present and the past but with women that all want the same thing, happiness.

This fictionalized story of the Vanderbilt family and The Biltmore fascinated me and remind me of a couple of shows that are set in this same time period. To be that wealthy might have been nice but had its own share of problems. This story follows the life of Edith and Cornelia Vanderbilt (the past), and Julia and Babs (the present). Each family has a veil that has been passed down through the ages and is supposed to bring good luck. It might have been in the past, but when it was Julia’s turn to marry she becomes the runaway bride.  She may love Hayes and he might love her, but that doesn’t mean that they belong together. An unsuspecting video puts Julia on another path to rediscover herself and what she wants from life. It also forces Babs (Julia’s grandmother) to take a hard look at her own life since her husband’s passing and is she living the life that she wants or deserves?

The story flips back and forth in time and we see the lives of these women unfold as they marry, discover themselves, and look to the future. Edith created the Biltmore estates and everything it entailed. That was a huge undertaking for her and her husband, George, but they did succeed. They have their ups and downs due to the times and even they were affected by the stock market crash in 1929. If you were wealthy even in these times you were looked at differently. Julia, an aspiring architect, has always admired this estate and chose to get married there. We learn that Julia has given up her dream of being an architect due to negative feedback from a professor. Instead of fighting for her project, she ran away. She ran away from her wedding too and she has a lot of soul searching to do to decide where she must land in this life.

We don’t know the whole story about how Julia’s family received the treasured veil, but bits and pieces are revealed and the full story is discovered in a letter that ties both stories together. It is a beautiful tale and gives one hope for happiness no matter what life throws at you.

Julia learns a lot about herself with the help of a new architect friend, Connor. He isn’t present in the whole story but is at the beginning and the end. It was nice to see that he was not brought in too soon before Julia had a chance to discover who she was without Hayes (her former fiance) and how she was going to support herself.

I found the stories about Edith and Cornelia fascinating because that was a different time when women were expected to marry and raise a family. They didn’t do much else and rarely had a career. However, Edith and Cornelia’s running of the estate was quite an undertaking and I can’t even imagine doing what they did to keep it afloat and supporting those that lived on the estate or in the village.

I appreciated the author’s notes about how she came to write this story so make sure to check that out if you pick up this book.

Overall, we really enjoyed the story and give it 5 paws up.

About the Author

Kristy Woodson Harvey is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Under the Southern Sky, Feels Like Falling, and The Peachtree Bluff series. A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s school of journalism, her writing has appeared in numerous online and print publications including Southern Living, Traditional Home, USA TODAY, Domino, and O. Henry. Kristy is the winner of the Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize. Her work has been optioned for film and television, and her books have received numerous accolades including Southern Living’s Most Anticipated Beach Reads, Parade’s Big Fiction Reads, and Entertainment Weekly’s Spring Reading Picks. Kristy is the cocreator and cohost of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction. She blogs with her mom Beth Woodson on Design Chic, and loves connecting with fans on KristyWoodsonHarvey.com. She lives on the North Carolina coast with her husband and son where she is (always!) working on her next novel.

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