About this item
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 wildcatteran outsider named Garret MacBride. Hetty is torn between Lamars lavish courtship and her instinctive connection to Garret. As Lamars 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.
About the Author
Duncan W. Alderson's debut novel MAGNOLIA CITY was published by Kensington Books of NYC in April, 2014 and was immediately selected as the No. 1 MUST-READ by Harper's Bazaar. Duncan began his career writing advertising copy for the exclusive chain of fashion stores in the Southwest, Sakowitz, then went on to teach English at the Toronto Waldorf High School --- but he was always "writing a novel on the side." A Houston native, he was inspired by pictures of his mother, Dottie May, dressed as a flapper in 1920s Texas and spent 10 years researching and writing his epic historical novel. K. K. Searle, the president of the Texas Heritage Society, approved, pronouncing MAGNOLIA CITY to be "wonderful historical fiction." Duncan now lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and New York City, where he is working on the sequel to MAGNOLIA CITY.
