Folly Park: A Novel

by Heidi Hackford

Overview

Fans of Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan, The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate, and Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson will enjoy Folly Park.

Are we ever able to escape the past? Should we be allowed to?

Though deeply ashamed of her slaveholding heritage, Temple Preston’s sense of duty and bittersweet memories tie her to Folly Park, her family’s crumbling ancestral plantation in Virginia. Now a cash-strapped tourist attraction, Folly Park was once the home of Confederate General Thomas Temple Smith, a southern war hero who died under mysterious circumstances. Temple is pursuing a plan to secure the house museum’s future when her summer research assistant, a Black PhD student, uncovers a remarkable secret: the general’s wife gave birth to a biracial baby while he was away fighting in the Civil War. This discovery turns Temple’s quiet, insulated life upside down, and—along with further revelations about the past that come to light in the ensuing weeks—fuels the growing tension in her hometown as a Black activist and Temple’s own race-baiting brother square off in a local campaign for mayor. Faced with threats and betrayal, Temple discovers who she really is—and how much she’s willing to lose to tell the truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647422714
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Heidi Hackford has a PhD in American history and finds inspiration in her career at history museums, including Monticello, where she worked on the papers of Thomas Jefferson. She is fascinated by the unexpected twists and turns of the past and loves to incorporate them in her fiction. Her Puritan murder mystery On a Stony Place is available on Amazon Kindle and she blogs about how history turns up in everyday life in her newsletter “Living With History,” which lives at https://heidihackford.substack.com. Heidi lives in Half Moon Bay, California, with her husband, a fellow historian, and a very old cat.

Editorial Reviews

Hackford’s writing is crisp and poignant. . . . she artfully conveys a compelling drama . . . The result is a powerful novel, as affecting as it is provocative.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A young woman’s quest to save her Virginia family's historic house from developers collides with her determination to bring its secrets out into the open. Folly Park is a timely tale of racial reckoning, the need to face uncomfortable truths about the past, and the barriers we erect—and tear down.”
—Susan Higginbotham, author of John Brown's Women

“Temple Preston’s beloved ancestral plantation harbors evil secrets. When faced with the sins of its past, will she set the story straight—at any cost? Folly Park spins a haunting tale of a struggle for integrity in the face of familial corruption. Timely, engaging, and evocative.”
—Adele Holmes, author of Winter’s Reckoning

“At what cost, truth? When Temple Preston discovers an old family photograph lodged in the ceiling of the decaying ancestral Virginia plantation where she works as the curator, she is forced to confront long-held family secrets. With the help of a Black research assistant, Temple makes explosive discoveries that challenge family honor, loyalty, and trust. A five-star debut!”
—Ashley E. Sweeney, author of Answer Creek

“Are we ever able to escape our past? Should we be allowed to? At once a work of superbly accurate historical fiction and a commentary on today’s clash over the place of historic monuments and rhetoric surrounding race and slavery, Folly Park is a gripping good read.”
—L. Diane Barnes, historian and associate editor of the Frederick Douglass Papers

“In this fast-paced and suspenseful novel, a daughter of the white southern aristocracy veers between accountability and nostalgia as she struggles to become an agent of social change. Especially vivid is Temple’s developing alliance with Vee, a Black researcher whose findings threaten to unseat Temple’s idols and to place both young women on surprising common ground.”
—Wendy Sanford, author of These Walls Between Us: A Memoir of Friendship Across Race and Class

From the Publisher