Lavender Morning (Edilean Series #1)

Jocelyn Minton is a woman torn between two worlds. Her mother grew up attending private schools and afternoon teas, but she married the local handyman. After her mother died when Joce was only five years old, her father remarried into his own class, and Joce became an outsider — until she met Edilean Harcourt. Although she was sixty years Joce's senior, Miss Edi was a kindred soul who understood her like no one else ever had.

When Miss Edi passes away, she leaves Joce all her worldly possessions, including an eighteenth-century house and a letter with clues to a mystery that began in 1941. In the letter, Miss Edi also mentions that she has found the perfect man for Joce — a handsome young lawyer. Joce is shocked to learn that the mystery, the house, and the future love of her life are all in Edilean, a small town in Virginia that Miss Edi never told her about. Hurt that the woman who meant so much to her kept so many secrets, Jocelyn moves to this tight-knit village in an attempt to understand the legacy that has been left to her. As she begins to dig into Miss Edi's mystery, she soon discovers some shocking surprises about her family's history and her own future — and she meets a man with his own mysterious past.

Editorial Reviews

Family ties, smalltown values and unexpected love in picturesque settings have made Deveraux a longtime bestselling author, so it's no surprise she again delivers on her tried-and-true formula. Jocelyn "Joce" Minton, daughter of a Williamsburg, Va., debutante and a handyman, is alienated from her family after her widowed father marries a woman who is decidedly not debutante material and has a pair of selfish twins. Joce ends up in the care of an elderly neighbor, Miss Edi, who watches over the girl through college. When Miss Edi dies, she leaves Joce an ancestral manor house and a trove of secrets going back to 1941 that compel Joce to visit Edilean, Va., where she meets the local color, including a sexy lawyer and his sexier gardener cousin-who has a secret or two, himself. Alternating WWII battlefront tragedy with contemporary romance, Deveraux packs in something for every generation, from wicked supermodels to patriotic sacrifice, from planting an herb garden to DNA tests. For all the novel's coincidences and predictability, readers will find it hard to resist the charm of Edilean, the manor house, the town, the woman of many secrets and, of course, the series to follow. (Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About The Author:

Jude Deveraux was born in Fairdale, Kentucky, the eldest of a family of three girls and one boy. After earning a degree in art from Murray State University and studying teaching at the University of New Mexico, she taught fifth grade in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She left when her first book, The Land of Enchantment, was accepted for publication by Avon books.

Jude's first books were historical, chiefly featuring the Montgomery and Taggert families. Stories of the lives and loves of these families spanned over several centuries in the US and England. They are filled with details of the history and culture of the time periods and settings of her novels. Her more recent series of books focuses on the McTern family and its descendants. The novels are set in the fictional town of Edilean, Virginia, and go from when the family arrived in America to contemporary time.

Jude's exhaustive research on every aspect of her books has made for a rich and detailed background for each of her novels....

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Name:Jude Deveraux

Also Known As:Jude Gilliam White (full name)

Current Home:Connecticut

Date of Birth:September 20, 1947

Place of Birth:Fairdale, Kentucky

http://www.facebook.com/JudeDeveraux" xmlns:exslt="http://exslt.org/common">* Jude Deveraux's official web site

Biography

Jude Deveraux was born in Fairdale, Kentucky, the eldest of a family of three girls and one boy. After earning a degree in art from Murray State University and studying teaching at the University of New Mexico, she taught fifth grade in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She left when her first book, The Land of Enchantment, was accepted for publication by Avon books.

Jude's first books were historical, chiefly featuring the Montgomery and Taggert families. Stories of the lives and loves of these families spanned over several centuries in the US and England. They are filled with details of the history and culture of the time periods and settings of her novels. Her more recent series of books focuses on the McTern family and its descendants. The novels are set in the fictional town of Edilean, Virginia, and go from when the family arrived in America to contemporary time.

Jude's exhaustive research on every aspect of her books has made for a rich and detailed background for each of her novels. Her stories are adventurous, funny, and at times heartwarming. Jude has had over thirty books on the New York Times Bestsellers List, over 60 million copies in print, and has been translated into 18 languages.

Jude has lived in England and Egypt as well as in several American states, and she has traveled around the world. She likes to read nonfiction and murder mysteries, work in her garden, and in boxing class, she enjoys showing much younger males that she can throw a mean right cross.

Good To Know

Deveraux began her career as a fifth-grade teacher.