What do you think?
Rate this book
Waxwood #4
Dandelions
Vivian has more in common with her nemesis than she wants to believe.
Waxwood, 1900: For Vivian Alderdice, the twentieth century begins with a new start. Now a working woman and progressive reformer, she's forsaken Nob Hill for Waxwood’s business district. Penelope Alderdice’s specter now laid to rest, Vivian’s future is assured. It’s not the future she envisioned for herself. Instead of attending society balls and indulging in gossip, she sells strawberry sodas at her friend’s drugstore and helps working-class women improve their education.
Vivian’s quiet life is thrown into turmoil when the man who ruined her brother’s life appears in Waxwood like another specter she must overcome. At first, Vivian hates him with a passion. But when she sees how his own undiscovered past has destroyed him, leaving him helpless in the hands of the cousin who hates him worse than she does, she finds herself drawn into helping him.
Is Vivian following his journey through the dark forest of guilt and betrayal or her own?
Read the powerful conclusion of the Alderdice family saga set among the wealth and excess of America’s Gilded Age.
Discover for yourself whether Vivian will lay her specters to rest at last and find peace and forgiveness in the future.
~~~
THE WAXWOOD SERIES
The Specter (Waxwood Series: Book 1)
False Fathers (Waxwood Series: Book 2)
Pathfinding Women (Waxwood Series: Book 3)
Waxwood, 1900: For Vivian Alderdice, the twentieth century begins with a new start. Now a working woman and progressive reformer, she's forsaken Nob Hill for Waxwood’s business district. Penelope Alderdice’s specter now laid to rest, Vivian’s future is assured. It’s not the future she envisioned for herself. Instead of attending society balls and indulging in gossip, she sells strawberry sodas at her friend’s drugstore and helps working-class women improve their education.
Vivian’s quiet life is thrown into turmoil when the man who ruined her brother’s life appears in Waxwood like another specter she must overcome. At first, Vivian hates him with a passion. But when she sees how his own undiscovered past has destroyed him, leaving him helpless in the hands of the cousin who hates him worse than she does, she finds herself drawn into helping him.
Is Vivian following his journey through the dark forest of guilt and betrayal or her own?
Read the powerful conclusion of the Alderdice family saga set among the wealth and excess of America’s Gilded Age.
Discover for yourself whether Vivian will lay her specters to rest at last and find peace and forgiveness in the future.
~~~
THE WAXWOOD SERIES
The Specter (Waxwood Series: Book 1)
False Fathers (Waxwood Series: Book 2)
Pathfinding Women (Waxwood Series: Book 3)
266 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2021
4 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Tam May
24 books697 followersWriting has been Tam’s voice since the age of fourteen. She writes stories set in the past featuring sassy but sensitive women characters. Readers share the experience of women struggling to carve out an identity for themselves during eras when their options were limited. Her stories are set mostly around the Bay Area because she adores sourdough bread, Ghirardelli chocolate, and San Francisco history.
Tam is the author of the Adele Gossling Mysteries, which takes place in the early 20th century and features suffragist and epistolary expert Adele Gossling, whose talent for solving crimes doesn’t sit well with her small town’s conventional ideas about women. Tam also has a new series, the Grave Sisters Mysteries, about three sisters who own a funeral home and help the county D.A. solve crimes in a 1920s small California town.
In addition, Tam writes historical fiction about women breaking loose from the social expectations of their time. She has a 4-book series set in the 1890s, the Waxwood Series, and a post-World War II short story collection, *Lessons From My Mother’s Life*.
Although Tam left her heart in San Francisco, she lives in the Midwest because it’s cheaper. When she’s not writing, she’s devouring everything classic (books, films, art, music), concocting yummy plant-based dishes, and exploring her riverside town.
Tam is the author of the Adele Gossling Mysteries, which takes place in the early 20th century and features suffragist and epistolary expert Adele Gossling, whose talent for solving crimes doesn’t sit well with her small town’s conventional ideas about women. Tam also has a new series, the Grave Sisters Mysteries, about three sisters who own a funeral home and help the county D.A. solve crimes in a 1920s small California town.
In addition, Tam writes historical fiction about women breaking loose from the social expectations of their time. She has a 4-book series set in the 1890s, the Waxwood Series, and a post-World War II short story collection, *Lessons From My Mother’s Life*.
Although Tam left her heart in San Francisco, she lives in the Midwest because it’s cheaper. When she’s not writing, she’s devouring everything classic (books, films, art, music), concocting yummy plant-based dishes, and exploring her riverside town.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 5, 2021
The Waxwood saga gets a new twist when Vivian Alderdice learns another lesson in compassion. I’m drawn into this series of the West Coast elite during the turn of the twentieth century – the Gilded Age in San Francisco. Author Tam May has done an artful job staying in character and context, scene and setting of this often overlooked and elusive era of modern history.
The Alderdice family is not what it seems – but then, everyone has secrets. The saga begins in book 1 with Vivian Alderdice’s grandmother, whose secret entices Vivian on a journey of discovery, first to unravel a mysterious friendship, then in subsequent books, a journey of self-discovery. Vivian chose to step away from the illusions of the wealthy elite to find a useful place in society. She moves in with a new friend and leaps headlong into aiding the working class society of Waxwood, the real life community just outside the resort community outside of San Francisco where the well-to-do spend summers.
In this fourth book, when Vivian’s past makes an unwelcome appearance in the guise of a former friend taking care of a relative now in a near catatonic state, the friend elicits Vivian’s help. Roger thinks she can reach inside his cousin Harland Stevens’s broken mind and find the man who once controlled the fate of young men which included her brother, resulting in disaster. Vivian has despised Stevens for ruining their lives.
Vivian receives a mysterious message about forgiveness from a beggar woman, and must decide whether to act on it. The lessons she’s learning about compassion have a greater impact than she expects. I look forward to reading more about her journey in future books.
Although readers will benefit from reading the books in order, each book is complete if you give yourself time to allow the story to unfold at its own pace. The Gilded Age, after all, was a gentile time. Take a step back and allow yourself to be immersed in an era of change. Told from a tight angle of omniscient perspective, readers follow the story mostly from Vivian’s point of view with occasional insights from the supporting characters.
The Alderdice family is not what it seems – but then, everyone has secrets. The saga begins in book 1 with Vivian Alderdice’s grandmother, whose secret entices Vivian on a journey of discovery, first to unravel a mysterious friendship, then in subsequent books, a journey of self-discovery. Vivian chose to step away from the illusions of the wealthy elite to find a useful place in society. She moves in with a new friend and leaps headlong into aiding the working class society of Waxwood, the real life community just outside the resort community outside of San Francisco where the well-to-do spend summers.
In this fourth book, when Vivian’s past makes an unwelcome appearance in the guise of a former friend taking care of a relative now in a near catatonic state, the friend elicits Vivian’s help. Roger thinks she can reach inside his cousin Harland Stevens’s broken mind and find the man who once controlled the fate of young men which included her brother, resulting in disaster. Vivian has despised Stevens for ruining their lives.
Vivian receives a mysterious message about forgiveness from a beggar woman, and must decide whether to act on it. The lessons she’s learning about compassion have a greater impact than she expects. I look forward to reading more about her journey in future books.
Although readers will benefit from reading the books in order, each book is complete if you give yourself time to allow the story to unfold at its own pace. The Gilded Age, after all, was a gentile time. Take a step back and allow yourself to be immersed in an era of change. Told from a tight angle of omniscient perspective, readers follow the story mostly from Vivian’s point of view with occasional insights from the supporting characters.
July 4, 2024
This is the first book of the series that I have read and I have enjoyed it. Decided to give it a try because I have read other books by the author and I like her style of writing. This one hasn't disappointed even though it is not my go-to genre.
Sweet and poignant, this heartfelt story about coming to terms with the past and compassion and forgiveness is touching. Although it does take some concentration to work out who is what, seeing that I have not read the others, it does work as a standalone, making me want to now catch up with the other books. I would recommend this book for sure.
Sweet and poignant, this heartfelt story about coming to terms with the past and compassion and forgiveness is touching. Although it does take some concentration to work out who is what, seeing that I have not read the others, it does work as a standalone, making me want to now catch up with the other books. I would recommend this book for sure.
July 2, 2024
This was an intriguing and engaging book. It is the first Waxwood book I have read, and I look forward to reading more. Ms. May has done an excellent job of weaving together the story of Vivian Alderdice Caulfield and her enemy, Harland Stevens. Harland has given Vivian more than one reason to mistrust him. Can he earn her trust and forgiveness for past misdeeds? Find the answer to that question by reading this unputdownable book, which I highly recommend to other fiction readers. I received an ARC of this book, and the opinion expressed is strictly my own.
December 21, 2020
The author always writes very unconventional books but that's what makes reading them a challenge. Ms. May has said this is the last book of the series but I BEG OF YOU to write one more. Since you thought and wrote such unexpected ending in which you left the door open for more interactions of the main characters, why don't you give it a chance?
January 14, 2021
Another great in this series. Vivian learns compassion and you feel what she learns. Amazing.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews