A Well-Behaved Woman A Novel of the Vanderbilts

New York Times Bestseller and USA Today Bestseller

Step into the glittering ballrooms and gilded mansions of America’s most audacious era with this riveting novel about Alva Vanderbilt—a woman who refused to play by society’s rules.

When Alva Smith’s Southern family lost everything after the Civil War, she did what any iron-willed woman would do: she married into the Vanderbilt dynasty and proceeded to shake New York society to its foundations. Shunned by old money, she didn’t retreat—she built nine mansions, threw legendary balls that forced the elite to notice her, and orchestrated her daughter’s marriage to a duke. But Alva’s ambitions reached far beyond social climbing. She became a fierce advocate for women’s suffrage, challenging not just society’s rules but the very structure of power itself.

Therese Anne Fowler, the bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, brings the Gilded Age to vivid life with prose that echoes Jane Austen’s wit and Edith Wharton’s keen social observation. Here is a world of breathtaking wealth shadowed by crushing poverty, of friendship and betrayal, ambition and scandal—all centered on one unforgettable woman who understood that history belongs to those brave enough to rewrite it.

A Well-Behaved Woman is perfect for readers who love richly detailed historical fiction, complex female characters, and stories that prove the most fascinating people are often the ones who refuse to behave.

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