Well Behaved Woman

About this book

The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family in as they rule Gilded-Age New York from the New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Alva Smith her southern family destitute after the Civil War married into one of Americas great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New Yorks old-money circles and determined to win respect she designed and built 9 mansions hosted grand balls and arranged for her daughter to marry a duke. But Alva also defied convention for women of her time asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the womens suffrage movement. With a nod to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton in A Well-Behaved Woman Therese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty of social ambition and social scorn of friendship and betrayal and an unforgettable story of a remarkable woman. Meet Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont living proof that history is made by those who know the rules--and how to break them.