Benedict Hall

In this richly layered debut novel, Cate Campbell introduces the wealthy Benedict family and takes us behind the grand doors of their mansion, Benedict Hall. There, family and servants alike must face the challenges wrought by World War I--and the dawn of a new age brimming with scandal, intrigue, and social change. Seattle in 1920 is a city in flux. Horse-drawn carriages share the cobblestone streets with newfangled motor cars. Modern girls bob their hair and show their ankles, cafés defy Prohibition by serving dainty teacups of whisky to returning vets--and the wartime boom is giving way to a depression. Even within the Benedicts' majestic Queen Anne home, life is changing--above and below stairs. Margot, the Benedicts' free-spirited daughter, struggles to succeed as a physician despite gender bias--and personal turmoil. The household staff, especially longtime butler Abraham Blake, have always tried to protect Margot from her brother Preston's cruel streak. Yet war has altered Preston too--not for the better. And when a chance encounter brings a fellow army officer into the Benedict fold, Preston's ruthlessness is triggered to new heights. An engineer at the fledgling Boeing company, Frank Parrish has been wounded body and soul, and in Margot, he senses a kindred spirit. But their burgeoning friendship and Preston's growing wickedness will have explosive repercussions for everyone at Benedict Hall--rich and poor, black and white--as Margot dares to follow her own path, no matter the consequences.

In Cate Campbell's sumptuously detailed, page-turning series set in 1920s Seattle, the once-secure lifestyle of the wealthy Benedict family--and their household staff--must contend with the radical, roaring Jazz Age. . . For generations, the Benedicts have been one of Seattle's most distinguished families, residing in the splendid Queen Anne mansion known as Benedict Hall amid a host of loyal servants. But the dawn of the 1920s and the aftermath of the Great War have brought dramatic social conflict. Never has this been more apparent than when daughter Margot's thoroughly modern young cousin, Allison, comes to stay. But Margot is also shocking many of Seattle's genteel citizens, and her engineer beau, by advocating birth control in her medical practice. For amid a tangle of blackmail, manipulation, and old enmities, the Benedicts stand to lose more than money--they may forfeit the very position and reputation that is their only tether to a rapidly changing world.

Set against the vibrant and colorful backdrop of 1920s Seattle, Cate Campbell's latest Benedict Hall novel brings the tumultuous, changing world of a privileged family to vivid life... Though born into one of Seattle's most prestigious families, Margot Benedict has fought to claim all the independence offered to young women in 1923. Where her brother Preston embraced a life of debauchery, Margot has a thriving medical practice. Working at a local orphanage, she's shocked to see a young boy who looks every inch a Benedict. But though she's convinced this is the illegitimate child Preston once mentioned, Margot has no way to prove any family connection. At sixteen, Bronwyn Morgan fell in love with dashing Preston Benedict. Seduced and abandoned, she's arrived at Benedict Hall determined to find the son she was forced to give away. Aging matriarch Edith takes the fragile girl under her wing, but Edith's own delicate state and Preston's dangerous animosity collide, jeopardizing not only a child's future, but the Benedict legacy itself.