Magnolia City

Name: Magnolia City
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Duncan W. Alderson
ISBN: 9781494573393

Author: Duncan W. Alderson

Narrator: Dan John Miller

Unabridged: 15 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/08/2014

Categories: Fiction, Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Houston in the 1920s is a city of established cotton kings and newly rich oil barons, where the elite live in beaux art mansions behind the gates of Courtlandt Place. Kirby Augustus Allen, grandson of the Allen brothers who founded Houston as a real estate deal, is grooming his daughter Hetty to marry Lamar Rusk, scion of the Splendora oil fortune. Instead, at the No-Tsu-Oh Carnival of 1928, beautiful, rebellious Hetty encounters a mysterious man from Montana dressed in the gear of a wildcatter—an outsider named Garret MacBride.

Hetty is torn between Lamar's lavish courtship and her instinctive connection to Garret. As Lamar's wife, she would be guaranteed acceptance to the highest ranks of Houston society. Yet Garret, poor but powerfully ambitious, offers the adventure she craves, with rendezvous in illicit jazz clubs and reckless nights of passion. The men's intense rivalry extends to business, as rumors of a vast, untapped ocean of oil in East Texas spark a frenzy that can make fortunes—or shatter lives and dreams beyond repair.

About Duncan W. Alderson

Duncan W. Alderson began his career writing advertising copy for an exclusive chain of fashion stores in the Southwest, then went on to teach English at the Toronto Waldorf High School. A Houston native, he was inspired by pictures of his mother, Dottie May, dressed as a flapper in 1920s Texas and spent ten years researching and writing his epic historical novel Magnolia City. Duncan lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he founded the Rabbit Hill Writers' Studio, and New York City with his wife, Isabel Lark.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Monica on January 11, 2016

Give. Me. A. Xanax. In the beginning the story line was very interesting but quickly became a big hot mess. There was just too many things going on for me to actually enjoy. Between Mother daughter issues, sibling issues, the daddy issues, the love triangle, the boom to bust; back to boom; back to bus......more

Goodreads review by Maria on November 28, 2013

Lovely, wonderfully well written! I will fess up that Duncan is a friend - I attended a couple of his writing classes back in...well, it was a while ago. He's a great teacher and writer and he's been working on this historical fiction for the last 10 years! And you can tell, the research is unbeliev......more

Goodreads review by Adriane on October 19, 2016

At first I didn't want to give this book 5 stars. At times the story frustrated me.. The changes in plot and setting are quick and without apology, it actually reads more like a series, and here's why: we start out in 1920s Houston where a young socialite must choose between a well off man from a ri......more

Goodreads review by Dan on April 06, 2014

This novel is a bit overwritten, but offers some neat historic detail of Houston, which is where the author grew up. It's kind of Gatsby-meets-Giant, a story that focusses on love, class and race in the face of Texas' original oil boom.......more

Goodreads review by Tilly on January 27, 2023

I don't think I can bring myself to finish it. You know things are a bit dull when you're polishing off a whopping chapter a day lol. I started reading this book during an 8 hour wait time in the emergency department. I think in a way it tainted the book because it's all I had to do for the entire d......more