Description
"1921, Newport When attorney Adrian de la Noye arrives at his client's summer estate, he expects to revise the elderly millionaire's will and return to Boston without delay. But nothing is quite as it seems. The staunchly practical Bennet Chapman is the firm's wealthiest and most formidable client, and so the lawyer is astonished to find the man with a twinkle in his eye, a spring in his step, and hastily engaged to a much younger woman. The Chapman heirs have arrived en masse prepared to defend their fortune, and Adrian is unsettled to discover he recognizes the future Mrs. Chapman--Catherine Walsh a figure from his past. What's more, the beguiling Catherine and her ethereally beautiful niece have managed to hook the entire household onto sâeances featuring the ghost of the first Mrs. Chapman. A specter who demands all be left to the new bride, and who knows far more about long-hidden secrets than is comfortable. As truths are revealed each participant must decide what to do with the revelations that will impact their fortunes and futures.."--
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Following in the steps of Beatriz Williams and Amor Towles, this richly atmospheric, spellbinding novel transports readers to the dazzling, glamorous world of Newport during the Roaring Twenties and to a mansion filled with secrets as a debonair lawyer must separate truth from deception.Spring 1921. The Great War is over, Prohibition is in full swing, the Depression still years away, and Newport, Rhode Island's glittering 'summer cottages' are inhabited by the gloriously rich families who built them.Attorney Adrian De la Noye is no stranger to Newport, having sheltered there during his misspent youth. Though he'd prefer to forget the place, he returns to revise the will of a well-heeled client. Bennett Chapman's offspring have the usual concerns about their father's much-younger fiancée. But when they learn of the old widower's firm belief that his first late wife, who 'communicates' via séance, has chosen the beautiful Catherine Walsh for him, they're shocked. And for Adrian, encountering Catherine in the last place he saw her decades ago proves to be a far greater surprise.Still, De la Noye is here to handle a will, and he fully intends to do so'just as soon as he unearths every last secret, otherworldly or not, about the Chapmans, Catherine Walsh . . . and his own very fraught history.A skillful alchemy of social satire, dark humor, and finely drawn characters, Newport vividly brings to life the glitzy era of the 1920s.
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