The Wedding Veil
This sweet multiperiod saga imagines the lives of four women linked by a wedding veil said to guarantee a happy marriage. For modern-day Julia Baxter, the family’s heirloom veil gives her the courage to jilt a cheating fiancé. While Julia takes off for the British Virgin Islands to get a tan and flirt with a handsome architect, her widowed grandmother, Babs, uproots to a senior living complex to escape a house full of burdensome memories. As Julia and Babs encounter new love interests and explore new futures, alternating chapters explore Edith Dresser’s 1898 marriage to George Vanderbilt and her struggle, after his death, to raise her child and maintain his vast estate of Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina.
The most poignant storyline belongs to Cornelia Vanderbilt, the sheltered daughter of one of America’s richest families, who finds that marriage, children, and Biltmore are, in the end, not enough to satisfy her deep longing. As the four women find the courage to follow their dreams, the two timelines move toward solving the mystery of how a wedding veil very similar to the one Edith Dresser wore might have come into the hands of Babs’s mother.
Harvey treats her subjects with gentle care, smoothing their trials with wisdom and hope. The history of Biltmore is a big part of the story, an inspiring monument to and constant financial drain on one of America’s most famous families. The women’s support and care for one another are the most appealing feature; Edith loves her daughter, even as Cornelia grows more restless, and Julia and Babs encourage each other in their new ventures. With its lavish central symbol and peek into Vanderbilt history, The Wedding Veil has a strong, sentimental allure.
