Under a Gilded Moon

A Novel

By: Joy Jordan-Lake

Narrated by: Kathleen Gati

Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

“Crawdads meets the Crawleys....Threaded through with a meticulously researched, well-crafted mystery, this is historical fiction at its best.” (Fiona Davis, nationally best-selling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue)

From the best-selling author of A Tangled Mercy comes an enthralling novel of secrets, a tumultuous war of ideas, and murder as classes collide in the shadow of Biltmore House.

Biltmore House, a palatial mansion being built by the Vanderbilts, American “royalty,” is in its final stages of construction in North Carolina. The country’s grandest example of privilege, it symbolizes the aspirations of its owner and the dreams of a girl, just as driven, who lives in its shadow.

Kerry MacGregor’s future is derailed when, after two years in college in New York City, family obligations call her home to the beautiful Appalachians. She is determined to distance herself from the opulence she sees rising in the Blue Ridge Mountains, however close its reach. Her family’s land is among the last pieces required to complete the Biltmore Estate. But something more powerful than an ambitious Vanderbilt heir could change Kerry’s fate as, one by one, more outsiders descend on the changing landscape - a fugitive from Sicily, a reporter chasing a groundbreaking story, a debutante tainted by scandal, and a conservationist prepared to put anyone at risk to stoke the resentment of the locals.

As Kerry finds herself caught in a war between wealth and poverty, innocence and corruption, she must navigate not only her own pride and desperation to survive but also the temptations of fortune and the men who control it.

©2020 by Joy Jordan-Lake (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Elegantly written and expertly crafted, Under a Gilded Moon soars as high as any piece of literature can reach. You’re transported to a time and place in history that begs [to be] read late into the night.” (Robert Dugoni, international best-selling author of The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell and the Tracy Crosswhite series)

“I was swept away by this dazzling, masterfully written tale of the clash of classes and cultures around the Biltmore in North Carolina. Joy Jordan-Lake brings the past alive with impeccable details, raw emotion, and parallels to our present world. A triumph.” (Emily Carpenter, best-selling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls)

Read- not audible

Horrible I mean horrible narrative. The reader couldn’t keep an accent straight, so it was so easy to get lost in which characters was even speaking. People from the Blue Ridge Mountains all of a sudden had an English accent and then back again to some drawl. I was frustrated that I didn’t pay attention to the reviews. Decent story if you can read it yourself.

Don’t believe everything you read

I almost didn’t rent based on comments previous listeners wrote about how tough it was to listen to this reader - that her accents weren’t authentic. First of all give the reader a break - there are sooo many different characters with different accents sometimes all in the same passage. This is an incredibly difficult book to read. Second, if you just focus on the story and the plot, you will enjoy this book regardless of whether the accent is accurate. I’m from North Carolina and have heard a few southern accents and I didn’t let the reader’s interpretation slow me down.
The story is pretty predictable with a strong heroine navigating the presumptions and prejudices of the day. I’ve toured Biltmore so it was fun listening to this story and knowing exactly where they stood and the majesty of the house that surrounded them.

Love

An amazing depiction of our USA history. The characters lives were represented with great detail. You could almost see the hills, the landscape and feel the weather.
This book was well written!

This one was tough for one narrator!

First of all, I enjoyed the book and thought it was pretty well done. Interesting story of the rise of the Biltmore estate and how it affected a lot of the locals at the time, many of whom sold their land to Vanderbilt. Our heroine’s family is one of those who don’t want to give up their farm.

There is one plotline that permeates the story about beliefs held by some people that foreigners (particularly non-whites, which at the time included Southern Europeans, such as Italians) needed to be eliminated from the country. This was one villainous character who was purportedly spreading these beliefs, apparently with some success. I knew that there were many people against immigration of a lot of different people at the time, including Irish, Italians, Chinese and Jewish, but did not know that there was a prevalence of beliefs in genetic purity (such as came about in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930’s) in 1895, when the story takes place. Don’t know if that portrayal is accurate, but considering what is going on in our country today, it wouldn’t surprise me.

The narrator had a monumental task, and succeeded pretty well with the number of accents she had to try to represent. There was Italian, Liverpool (not too good, but you did hear England), Scottish (not recognizable), New Orleans French, some kind of Southern (which was pretty consistent, even though it may not be accurate for the area), Boston Brahmin and New York society types (mostly trying to sound upper crust). She did have a few pronunciation problems, but when I can’t remember what words were mispronounced, I figure it wasn’t that bad.

I did find that a lot of the “country” sayings were awfully cliche (2 shakes of a lamb’s tail, etc.) and repeated more than necessary, but other than that, I enjoyed the story and most of the characters.

Splendid Read!

I enjoyed being immersed in the read! Great character development plot? I plan to visit Biltmore next year!

A little ambitious but...

After reading all the negative reviews, I started to wonder if I'd read the same book! To be fair, the author was very ambitious about getting way too many characters on the canvas in the first few chapters. If you gave up after a few chapters, you missed out on a decent story. It also didn't help that we were introduced to so many diverse backgrounds; rich aristocrats, Southern woman, a Sicilian man of dubious background, Southern children, sick father, station master, journalist, a woman from New Orleans plus a host of various workers at Biltmore; many who were also foreigners!

It was a lot to handle but Kathleen Gati gave life to each character. This distinction allowed the listener to sort out these people and their personalities while moving the story forward.

Overall, the book overcame some uneven writing at the start to become a fairly interesting and entertaining historical fiction. I've listened to several books narrated by Ms. Gati and have truly enjoyed her interpretation of a wide range of characters and this book was no exception.

ok

A pleasant read. Better narration would have helped. Her Blue Hole Back Home was a much better book in every way.

a bit tedious and confusing

This was a book club selection, which I struggled to complete. Perhaps if it's listened in longer stretches, I wouldn't have found it so scattered. I did finish, but it was only with determination.

Interesting story in Appalachia

Story of changes brought to Blue Ridge Mountain area when George Vanderbilt decided to build his estate there.

Narrator was so difficult to listen to, actually excruciating.

I only stuck with this audio book because it was a book club read. The narration was so badly done it was excruciating.