Fabulous Fiction Firsts #696
by muffy
After the Rain is the first novel by television news-anchor/reporter Jane Lorenzini.
Fort Myers, Florida, January 1888. Having lived in the storeroom of the local grocer since running away from home as a teenager, 25 year-old Belle Carson was about to turn her life around when she answered a newspaper ad for a gardener at Seminole Lodge - the winter home of Mina and Thomas Edison. She was excited by Mina’s plan for an extensive garden along the Caloosahatchee River, and for the first time, her own cottage on the grounds. As she gained confidence and courage, made friends, started a woman’s club, and contemplated a relationship with Boone, the Estate’s young groundskeeper, her dark past resurfaced. When Belle fought back, the repercussion threatened to destroy everything she had so carefully cultivated.
“Well-drawn characters and descriptions of Edison's laboratory, the estate, and a mysterious listening device that allows Belle to eavesdrop on private conversations help to vivify this particular time period.” (Publishers Weekly)
Readers eager to learn more about Thomas Edison the man and his milieu would enjoy Electric City by Elizabeth Rosner, and The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore.
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