Inspired by a real-life scandal that was shocking even for the tumultuous Roaring Twenties, this captivating novel tells the story of a pioneering Black journalist, a secret interracial marriage among the New York elite, and the sensational divorce case that ignited an explosive battle over race and class—and brought together three very different women fighting for justice, legitimacy, and the futures they risked everything to shape.
For readers of Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, a transporting work of fact-based historical fiction from Denny S. Bryce, bestselling author ofWild Women and the Blues,In the Face of the Sun,andCan't We Be Friends: A Novel of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe.
New York, 1920s. Born to English immigrants who’ve built a comfortable life, idealistic Alice Jones longs for the kind of true love her mother and father have. She believes she’s found it with Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander, the shy heir to his prominent white family's real estate fortune. Alice, too, is white, though she is vaguely aware of rumors that question her ancestry—gossip her parents dismiss. But when the lovers secretly wed, Kip's father threatens his inheritance unless he annuls the marriage.
Devastated but determined, Alice faces overwhelming odds legally and in the merciless court of public opinion. But there are two people who can either help her—or shatter her hopes for good: In the 1940s, her estranged niece, Roberta Brooks, must put aside her disdain for her infamous aunt to combat an unexpected new Rhinelander legal assault. And in the 1920s, reporter Marvel Cunningham lives to chronicle social change and the Harlem Renaissance's fiery creativity, but when Alice’s story dominates the headlines, Marvel's job is to cover it.
At first, Marvel and Roberta, in different decades, see Alice’s legal entanglements as tabloid sensations generated by a self-hating woman who failed to “pass.” But the deeper they investigate, the more they will learn about the reasons behind Alice Jones’s behavior and what the three women have in common. The Trial of Mrs. Rhinelander will bring to light stunning truths that will force these women to confront who they are and who they can be in a world that is all too quick to judge.
