A Beauty So Rare

Just finished best selling author Tamera Alexander's latest release, A BEAUTY SO RARE, her second Belmont Estate novel (476 pages). What a wonderful read—historically accurate, romantically inclined, international intrigue, scientific discoveries ... and the struggle of post-bellum Nashville.

The book lives up to its name.

I had the opportunity to work with Tamera a number of times early in the story's development -- character arcs, metaphors, and plot. So, I knew the story pretty well, at least in broad strokes. But reading her masterful writing is a joy unto itself. And knowing what's going to happen is like reading the story a second time because I could concentrate more on how she pulls off the suspense, the secrets, the beats, the bumps, and the resolution.

One of the great things about historical fiction are the real-to-life characters authors like Tamera weave into the fictional tapestry. In A BEAUTY SO RARE she involves the following real life people, and maintains their identities: Adelicia Cheatham and her Belmont Estate  (perhaps the richest woman in America at the time), The European House of Habsburg, Luther Burbank (botanist who invented the Russet potato), Gregor Mendel (father of genetics), Dorothea Dix (American activist for the indigent insane), the work of Joseph Mozier, and others. There are some great YouTube videos about the mansion and Tamera's inspiration for the story via her website link above.

A funny "secret" about the books creation and publication is how Tamera wanted to write about a woman who was smart, generous, took initiative, had nerves of steel, but wasn't so pretty...she was plain to put it mildly. Her beauty was hidden beneath the surface. The story is how that blossoms into real beauty of character such that a handsome Archduke of European royalty who has moved to Nashville to escape the arrangement of his life, falls in love with her.  Tamera uses multiple and rich metaphors including the Selenicereus grandiflorus (The Queen of the Night that blossoms only once a year at midnight - see video below).

So when the publisher showed Tamera the cover (above), Tamera had a fit. She didn't picture the protagonist, Eleanor Braddock as anything like the beautiful model and never wearing anything so pretty as a huge, beautiful PINK dress. But the publisher was insistent on using the cover, which is a doctored photo of a shoot of a real model and a real greenhouse. What to do? So I suggested Tamera put Eleanor in a situation where she was given a dress that she had to wear and it was big and pink ...and she hated it, just like the author. And that's just what Tamera did with excellence, both at the beginning and (LOL!) at the end of the story. It was a wonderful surprise for me and perfectly demonstrated Eleanor's arc. In fact, on the back of the book...sort of a way around the beautiful cover, Tamera wrote this, and the publisher's used it:

"PINK is not what Eleanor Braddock ordered, but maybe it would soften the tempered steel of a woman who came through a war—and still had one to fight. Plain, practical Eleanor Braddock knows she will never marry, but..."

Great job, Tamera. I loved it all.

stan