Charleston County Public Library

The secret life of Violet Grant, Beatriz Williams

eng

no index present

fiction

The secret life of Violet Grant

861068905

Beatriz Williams

"Manhattan, 1964. Vivian Schuyler, newly graduated from Bryn Mawr, has defied the privilege of her storied old Fifth Avenue family to do the unthinkable for a budding Kennedy-era socialite: break into the world of razor-stylish Metropolitan magazine. But when she receives a bulky overseas parcel, the unexpected contents draw her inexorably back into her family's past, and the hushed-over crime of an aunt she never knew, whose existence has been wiped from the records. Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason: for all his faults, he provides the necessary support to her liminal position as a young American female physicist in prewar Germany. The arrival of Dr. Grant's magnetic former student at the beginning of Europe's fateful summer disrupts this delicate detente. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband's perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel's shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life of her own conviction with a man whose cause is as audacious as her own. As the iridescent and fractured Vivian digs deeper into her aunt's past and the mystery of her ultimate fate, Violet's story of determination and desire unfolds, shedding light on the darkness of her years abroad and teaching Vivian to reach forward with grace for the ambitious future--and the love--she wants most"--, Provided by publisher