pbThe biNew York Timesib and biUSA Todayib bestsellerb pbThe riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family as they rule Gilded-Age New York, written by biTherese Anne Fowler, a New York Timesib bestselling author of biZ A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.i pAlva Smith, her southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America's great Gilded Age dynasties the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New York's old-money circles and determined to win respect, she designed and built nine mansions, hosted grand balls, and arranged for her daughter to marry a duke. But Alva also defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women's suffrage movement. pWith a nod to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, in iA Well-Behaved Woman iTherese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty, of social ambition and social scorn, of friendship a