Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label The Legacy of Eden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Legacy of Eden. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy - First Chapter Scavenger Hunt!


Welcome to Day 18 of The Legacy of Eden First Chapter Scavenger Hunt!  If you need to get caught up - please check out the full schedule here - otherwise, read on


I was calling for her. It was I who had offered to find her.
Oh, God, if I had never…if I had never opened that letter today, if she hadn’t told the lawyers she had wanted nothing to do with them, if Cal Jr. had never inherited the farm, if I’d done the things I’d believed I was capable of, if I hadn’t been capable of the things I’d done, if…if…if…somewhere out there, all the potential versions of my life floated on parallel planes. In one I never went out that night, in another more likely alternative, she does not put down the phone. Instead she stays on the line. We talk for a long, long time.
She listens.
She forgives me.
Do you believe in ghosts?
I didn’t until I started living with them.
Two days have passed since the letter arrived. I walk past my mother sitting in my armchair mending my pinafore, or my father at the fridge humming to himself as he scans my feeble purchases of organic whole foods.

Tomorrow's excerpt can be found here:  http://teddyrose.blogspot.com/
Unfettered ambition, familial schisms and dark secrets abound in THE LEGACY OF EDEN (MIRA Books, February 2012, $15.95 U.S./$18.95 CAN.), the masterful literary debut by Nelle Davy, in which a woman recounts her family’s deeply troubled and tragic history as she prepares to return to the once-grand estate she fled almost two decades earlier.
When New York sculptor Meredith Pincetti receives a letter from a law firm, alerting her to the death of her cousin, she is suddenly confronted by her disturbing past—a past she successfully escaped and buried seventeen years ago.
Informed that Aurelia, the once-grand Iowa estate and farm where she was raised, is to be sold at auction to settle her late cousin’s debts, Meredith resolves to return to her family homestead and collect the few possessions that belonged to her parents.
In doing so, Meredith recalls the spectacular rise and disastrous fall of the Hathaway family beginning with her grandfather, Cal’s, dreams and ending with his utter disappointments. We experience her grandmother, Lavinia’s, iron will and ceaseless machinations to ensure that her vision of Aurelia comes to pass. As Aurelia thrives, becoming the largest farm in the county, behind the veneer things are crumbling. Dissipation, brutality and betrayal find fertile ground in the next generation of Hathaways. Seemingly idyllic childhoods precede the exile and return of Hathaways from multiple generations—including Meredith.
And, as Meredith returns to Aurelia, she is forced to confront her own role in her family’s tortured fall from grace. What part did she play in the events that took place during her adolescence two decades earlier? How does her festering relationship with her sisters mirror similar connections between her father’s and grandfather’s siblings? What secrets did she leave behind when she fled Iowa for New York?
Though founded and overseen by male Hathaways, it is the women—Lavinia and her sister-in-law, Piper; Julia, Cal’s daughter from his first marriage; Meredith and her sisters, Claudia and Ava—who play pivotal roles in shaping the events that occur at Aurelia. And, ultimately, it is they who reveal its unspeakable secrets.


THE LEGACY OF EDEN is available wherever books are sold, and at www.MIRABooks.com.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy (Book Review)

Title: The Legacy of Eden
Author: Nelle Davy
Publisher: MIRA Books

About the Book:  "To understand what it meant to be a Hathaway you'd first have to see Aurelia."

For generations, Aurelia was the crowning glory of more than three thousand acres of Iowa farmland and golden cornfields.  The estate was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name -- no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process.  It was a desperation that wrought the downfall of the Hathaways -- and the once-prosperous farm.

Now the last inhabitant of the decaying old home has died -- alone.  None of the surviving members of the Hathaway family want anything to do with the farm, the land or the memories.

Especially Meredith Pincetti.  Now living in New York City, for seventeen years Lavinia's youngest grandchild has tried to forget everything about her family and her past.  But with the receipt of a pleading letter, Meredith is again thrust into conflict with the legacy that destroyed her family's once-great name.

Back at Aurelia, Meredith must confront the rise and fall of the Hathaway family. . . and her own part in their mottled history.

My thoughts:  Lavinia is the matriarch of the Hathaway family and she is bound and determined to create a legacy of land and family even if it costs her members of that family.  Her own rise to matriarch is made with calculation and scandal, but once ensconsed there, she plans on staying there.

The story goes back three generations, well really four generations, but the "family" and Aurelia begins when Lavinia marries Cal.  They take over running the farm, with Cal's sister, Piper, and begin it's prosperous rise.  Leo, Cal's other brother, upset over the way the inheritance from their father played out, has left - to never look back.  This is just the beginning of those who choose to leave, or are sent away.

Lavinia fears no one when it comes to making decisions for what she feels is best for her family.  With manipulation and cunning, she sets out to rid herself of any opposition, be it blood relation or otherwise. 

The story is told by Meredith, and it was confusing for me to follow in the beginning.  It would jump back and forth from how she heard the story, whether from her father when she was still in the womb, or from her grandmother as she lay dying, or from her own experiences. I eventually made myself a family tree so that I could keep the branches straight.

When Cal Jr. dies, the lawyers begin to look for surviving members of the Hathaway family.  Finally finding Meredith, she eventually feels she should return to Aurelia, just for those items that were her parents'.  She does not want to go, as she doesn't want to awaken any more ghosts from her past than she already has.  But go she does only to find another sister felt compelled to return as well. 

This is one of those books that needs to ruminate awhile to get the full effect. I am sure that if I were to write a review a week from now, there would be different aspects to the story that would have surfaced.  There is so much said between the lines that I think this would be a great book for a book club to discuss. 

Now, having said all that, I found the setting of Iowa a little strange.  I grew up in Iowa from 1966 - 1986, in a farming community, and I never knew of any farmer who named their farm, or went to such lengths, in a way that Lavinia did.  Maybe that was the point though. . .

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Meryl L. Moss Media in exchange for my unbiased review.~


There is currently a scavenger hunt going on for excerpts of The Legacy of Eden.  You can find all the information here.  Please come back and visit me on the 18th, when I will have my own excerpt posted here!

The Legacy of Eden
Publisher/Publication Date: MIRA Books, Feb 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7783-2955-8
368 pages


Challenges:
New Authors
Where Are You Reading?
Find the Cover/Coversuch
ARC Reading Challenges (2)
Free Reads Challenge
Harlequin Silhoutte Challenge

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Guest Post: Nelle Davy author of The Legacy of Eden

Imagination has no boundaries – it is a vast landscape without maps or limitations. I know the old axiom is ‘write what you know’ but why should it be? Why should female writers confine themselves to the domestic and the minutiae of life, while their male counterparts explore fresh new terrain? I decided when I started writing that I would do only one thing and that was write the kind of book I would read and I would not limit myself. Of course it is difficult taking on the voice and culture of another country that is not your own but that is what a library and research is for. I spent a lot of time doing research about America and Iowa in particular (I read a lot of Bill Bryson who described what it was like to grow up in Iowa and I found his anecdotes – particularly his description of the state fair really invaluable). I was also lucky that I had an agent in America who could look over my first draft and say to me ‘an American would not say this or do this’ about small things that I would never have thought over. But these were small changes really, by that point I had already captured (or hope I have) the American voice. Mostly I found it really exciting to do something so challenging. I think that is the beauty of fiction, that you can escape – and I really did – to a different time and completely different place. The ironic thing is I have been to lots of places in America where I could have set the book (Pennsylvania for starters) but I chose a state I had never even seen. I guess I just like to be difficult.


Nelle Davy was born in Grenada in 1984 and was raised in London within an Anglo-Caribbean family. She studied English with creative writing at the University of Warwick and then undertook a master of philosophy degree in creative writing at Trinity College Dublin. She currently lives in London with her husband, where she works in publishing. THE LEGACY OF EDEN is her first novel and she is currently working on her second.


Thank you Ms. Davy for being a guest here today!  I hope that everyone comes back tomorrow for my review and a giveaway of The Legacy of Eden.  This book is currently on tour with a scavenger hunt - please check out this link to see all the blogs participating!


About the book: "To understand what it meant to be a Hathaway you'd first have to see Aurelia." For generations, a grand estate house was the crowning glory of over three thousand acres of Iowa farm land and golden corn fields. Named Aurelia, it was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name - no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process. It was a desperation that wrought the downfall of the Hathaways - and the once prosperous farm. Now the last inhabitant of the decaying old home has died - alone. None of the surviving members of the Hathaway dynasty want anything to do with the house, the land or the memories. Especially Meredith Pincetti. Now living in New York City, for seventeen years Lavinia's youngest grandchild has tried to forget everything about her family and her past. But with the receipt of a pleading letter, Meredith is again thrust into conflict with the legacy which destroyed her family's once-great name. Back at Aurelia, Meredith must confront the rise and fall of the Hathaway family...and her own part in their mottled history.


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