The Wedding Veil

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of Under the Southern Sky and the Peachtree Bluff series “brings her signature warmth and Southern charm” (E! Online) to this sweeping novel following four women across generations, bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family.

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 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982180720
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	37,153
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Kristy Woodson Harvey is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including The Wedding Veil, Under the Southern Sky, and The Peachtree Bluff series, which is in development for television with NBC. 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 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.

Read an Excerpt

Prologue: Magic: June 5, 1879

PROLOGUE Magic June 5, 1879


Six-year-old Edith Dresser’s skates moved heavily, as if she were rolling through sand, across the patterned wool rug in her mother Susan’s bedroom. She lived for moments like this, when she had her vivacious, beautiful mother all to herself while her three sisters continued their skating downstairs in the dining room. Usually, her mother’s lady’s maid would have helped Susan get ready for the party she was attending this evening, but she wasn’t feeling well. So instead, Edith stood—her skates making her taller—admiring the rows of frocks for every occasion in her mother’s closet.

“Do you think the pink for tonight, darling?” Susan asked. Edith tried to focus on her mother, but her child’s eyes wandered to the back corner of the narrow closet. “I love pink, Mama,” Edith said as she clomped ungracefully to a garment she knew well. With a tentative finger, she traced the lace on the edge of her favorite piece, the one she and her sisters loved to try on most: her mother’s wedding veil.

Susan turned and smiled, watching her daughter study one of her most prized possessions. In a burst of energy, she moved behind Edith, swept the long veil off its hanger, and motioned for Edith to follow her. In the light and opulence of her bedroom, Susan placed the cherished Juliet cap on her small daughter’s head, gently touching the rows of pearls at the bottom. She smiled.

“Just look at you, my girl,” Susan said as she arranged the lace-edged tulle around her daughter’s shoulders, the contrast great against her gray wool dress. Edith stood as still as one of the statues in the yard, holding her breath so she couldn’t possibly damage the veil.

Staring into the mirror, Edith felt transformed. It was still her reflection looking back at her, in her usual outfit with her favorite roller skates. But, somehow, she was completely different.

Susan bent down until her eyes locked with her daughter’s in the mirror. “One day,” she said, “when you are quite grown up and find a man you love very much, you will wear this veil just like I did when I married Daddy.”

Edith watched her own eyes go wide, imagining. Then she scrunched her nose. “But I want to stay with you, Mama.” Edith knew that, in other houses like hers, little girls were supposed to be seen and not heard. They weren’t allowed to roller skate inside and certainly weren’t permitted to play dress-up in their mother’s elegant clothes. Why would Edith ever want to leave a mother who let her keep a dozen pet turtles in the yard?

Susan laughed, moving in front of her daughter to adjust the veil again. She wrapped her in a hug and said, “No, Edi. You are going to find a wonderful man and be the most beautiful bride. Daddy will be there to walk you down the aisle, your sisters will stand beside you as your bridesmaids, and I will sniffle into my handkerchief and wipe my eyes because I will be so proud and happy.”

Edith was confused. “If you’re happy, why would you cry?”

“Because that’s what mothers do at their daughters’ weddings.”

Edith studied her mother, trying to think if she had ever seen her cry from happiness. She couldn’t remember a time, but, then again, Mama had a whole life that didn’t involve Edith, many hours that she would never see. And she figured that Mama liked living with Daddy, along with Edith and her sisters Susan, Pauline, and Natalie. So perhaps Edith would come to like having a family of her own as well. But she had conditions. Thinking of her favorite storybook, Cinderella, she said, “If I’m going to get married, I think I’d like to be a princess.”

Susan laughed delightedly. “Yes, yes. You, most certainly, will be a princess. You will live in a castle with many acres to roam to stretch your legs and plenty of fresh air to fill your lungs. You will have your own lady’s maid and a nursery full of lovely children. You will find a husband who will love you more than the stars, who will give you the earth and everything on it.”

This gave Edith a wonderful idea. “Can I marry Daddy, Mama?”

Susan smiled indulgently. “Well, I’m married to Daddy. But you will find a man just like Daddy, who is kind and handsome and loves you very much. And he will take care of you like Daddy takes care of me.”

Edith nodded. Becoming a bride suddenly seemed very, very important. She looked back at herself in the mirror, at how beautiful the veil was and, when she was wearing it, how beautiful she became. “Is this a magic wedding veil, Mama?” Edith asked.

Susan nodded enthusiastically. “Why yes, darling,” she whispered. “You have discovered the secret. Once you wear it on your wedding day, you will be happy forever.”

Edith, looking at herself one last time, wondered if she should share this life-changing news with her sisters. But no. That would ruin it somehow. She had a secret with her beloved mother, one to call her very own: The wedding veil was magic. And once she wore it, the fairy-tale life her mother had promised would be hers.

Editorial Reviews

12/20/2021

Harvey follows Under the Southern Sky with a satisfactory account of a wedding veil shared by two families. In present-day North Carolina, Julia Baxter is preparing for her fairy tale wedding, which is made complete by the veil passed down in her family as a symbol of eternity. But when she receives a text with a video showing her fiancé cheating on her, Julia calls off the wedding and decides to go on her honeymoon to the British Virgin Islands alone. Though the wedding veil is an heirloom, its provenance before Julia’s great-grandmother passed it down to Julia’s grandmother Babs is murky. A parallel narrative follows the independently minded Cornelia Vanderbilt, who grows up at Asheville’s Biltmore estate and loses her mother’s wedding veil after her wedding in 1924. After Julia and Babs visit an exhibition showing a reproduction of Cornelia’s veil, Julia wonders if hers might have been the Vanderbilts’ and later learns of a tenuous connection between the families. Though it lacks the emotional power of Harvey’s best work and passages devoted to the Vanderbilts’ lavish history can drag, the author easily switches between the time periods to locate momentous events in the characters’ lives and connect each story line with the veil at the center. Harvey, ever a fine storyteller, manages to keep the pages turning despite some rough patches. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Book Group. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for THE WEDDING VEIL
"Masterfully woven...[a] literary homerun. This split-time narrative will delight readers of both contemporary and historical novels. As with all her books, Harvey delivers her trademark glamour and lighthearted spirit, all while weaving in fashion, architectural design, and the dramas that play out in daily life. It’s a delightful, well-shaped novel that leaves readers with a burst of joy in the end. And who knows? Readers may even close the book believing that with a little magic, a family may be able to survive all the hardships to create their own little happy ever after."—New York Journal of Books

"Bestselling author Kristy Woodson Harvey will undoubtedly knock this out of the park."—Zibby Owens, Katie Couric Media

"The author easily switches between the time periods to locate momentous events in the characters’ lives and connect each story line with the veil at the center. Harvey, ever a fine storyteller, manages to keep the pages turning."—Publishers Weekly

"Finding inspiration in the true story of Edith Vanderbilt and her mysteriously disappeared wedding veil, Harvey intertwines a veil's generations-spanning journey, the lives of the women who wore it, and the strength required to remove the veil and follow one's heart instead."—Booklist

"The author of the Peachtree Bluff series brings her signature warmth and Southern charm to this story about four women across generations that are bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family. Like sweet tea, Woodson Harvey's writing coats your soul with heart."—E! Online

"Connecting the early days of the Vanderbilt dynasty in 1914 to a panicked family in present day American south, The Wedding Veil is an awe-inspiring novel."—Brit & Co

"From Asheville, N.C., to the British Virgin Islands, and from Manhattan to Raleigh, four women across the generations—all of them shaped by love and circumstance—find a way to summon their inner strength against the odds. A delightful, glamorous fairy tale—laced with a slice of history, a bit of fashion, and a lot of Harvey's signature wit and warmth—for those of us who know that 'happily ever after' only arrives after we've learned to stand on our own."—Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars

"Woodson Harvey’s latest is a knockout—a perfect blend of historical fiction (two generations of Vanderbilts and their iconic North Carolina mansion) and modern love (a runaway bride and her grieving grandmother). Her masterful intertwining of the storylines makes for a read that’s both sweeping yet incredibly intimate, with perfect pacing and characters who surprised at every turn. I didn’t want it to end."—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia Palace

“Kristy Woodson Harvey seamlessly intertwines the past and present in a multi-generational tale as elegant and charming as the elusive Vanderbilt veil itself. Through an exploration of love, family, and identity, The Wedding Veil guided me on a heartfelt journey brimming with endearing characters and delightful twists. I absolutely loved it.”—Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday

"Kristy Woodson Harvey weds history and modern day into a fascinating and astonishing marriage. With Harvey’s signature charming and heartfelt prose, The Wedding Veil explores love in all its dazzling facets across four generations and two families. Seeking answers to the extraordinary mystery of the Vanderbilt’s lost heirloom, Harvey unveils the past to bring truth to the future. Including an unrivaled and elegant Biltmore setting, The Wedding Veil is enchanting, surprising and Harvey at her story-telling best.”—Patti Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis

"Kristy Woodson Harvey expertly weaves together the mystery of the missing Vanderbilt wedding veil with the stories of four incredible women, all searching for their independence, their purpose, and ultimately their happiness. Told with her signature wit and warmth, The Wedding Veil is as glittering as the women at the heart of it!"—Julia Kelly, international bestselling author of The Last Garden in England

"Kristy Woodson Harvey’s entrée into historical fiction is breathtakingly charming. While Harvey has been a major player in contemporary women’s fiction for a number of years, her historical voice, her research, and her elegant prose earn her a place of respect in this new genre as well. A beautifully told story that is sure to be one of the year’s best."—Aimie K. Runyan, bestselling author of The School for German Brides

"[A] sweet, multiperiod saga...Harvey treats her subjects with gentle care, smoothing their trials with wisdom and hope. With its lavish central symbol and peek into Vanderbilt history, The Wedding Veil has a strong, sentimental allure."—Historical Novel Society

From the Publisher