Publisher Discount for The Orchid Hour

 

For the next week, my historical novel The Orchid Hour will be priced at 99 cents for the ebook in the United States and the United Kingdom.

To order it, click here.

I'm thrilled with the response to my novel!

Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and said: "Bilyeau paints a vivid portrait of 1923 New York City—particularly its insular Italian community, alluring speakeasies, and Prohibition-fueled organized crime—in this impeccably researched historical mystery...brilliantly evokes the intoxicating grit and glamour of Jazz Age Manhattan and layers a smooth blend of suspense and romance on top. Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible."

On Amazon, The Orchid Hour has a 4.4 rating among readers.

The endorsements from other authors include:

"With a heroine you can’t help rooting for, a fascinating cast of characters, and a tense, high-
stakes mystery at its heart, this is a book you can’t stop reading." -- Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow


“Nancy Bilyeau draws you effortlessly into a layered story, rich in historical detail, with a strong, intelligent, determined heroine at its center. I loved Zia from page one.” – Barbara Claypole White, author of The Perfect Son


“The structure of the story races you through it at breakneck speed. It is a hard book to put down, and all the time, there are so many threads binding the story together that the story is like an orchid and its roots.” – Griff Hosker, author of Hastings, Flodden, and Lord Edward’s Archer series


“Nancy Bilyeau has created a beautifully layered and utterly seductive tale of a young woman’s emotional awakening and search for justice, set against the dangerous criminal world of the 1920s New York City underground. The past comes thrillingly alive as Bilyeau lifts the veil on immigrant communities, speakeasies, gangsters, corruption at the highest levels of city government, and, at its living, tender heart, a strong-willed and magnetic heroine.”
—Emilya Naymark, author of Behind the Lie, finalist for the 2023 Sue Grafton Award

"The Orchid Hour... reeks with the smell of lasagna in Little Italy, the smell of cheap gin in a 1920s speakeasy, and most importantly and most delicately with the scent of orchids at midnight... her best by far, and she'd already set a high bar." - Timothy Miller, author of The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

"Nancy Bilyeau has become my go-to author for brilliantly written historical suspense... Read it and be seduced." - Kris Waldherr, author of Unnatural Creatures and The Lost History of Dreams

It has a 4.4 reader rating right now on Amazon. 

My Jazz Age Novel Is on Sale Today!

The Orchid Hour finds its place in the world today, and I feel proud and happy. Not that there haven't been bumps and setbacks on the road to publication. There have. And I expect more to come. But I worked hard on writing the book while taking great pleasure in doing the research. It was difficult and fun at the same time. What more can you ask for in writing fiction?

Now the story can be enjoyed as a paperback, an ebook, or an audiobook in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. 

The Amazon link is here.

For other links, go here.

“Bilyeau brilliantly evokes the intoxicating grit and glamour of Jazz Age Manhattan and layers a smooth blend of suspense and romance on top. Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review 

"A gloriously heady and intimate tale of love, loss, and family, set within one of the most fascinating periods of the 20th century." -- LoveReadingUK

Featured in Town and Country‘s “Must-Read Books of Summer 2023”

"From the family shops of Little Italy to the bright lights of Dreamland, Nancy Bilyeau takes you on a glittering tour of a bygone New York… " – Mariah Fredericks, author of The Lindbergh Nanny

"This is a novel redolent with sensuality, intrigue, and suspense. If you like Agatha Christie, you will love The Orchid Hour." -- Paulette Kennedy, author of Parting the Veil and The Witch of Tin Mountain

'Nancy Bilyeau has created a beautifully layered and utterly seductive tale… and, at its living, tender heart, a strong-willed and magnetic heroine.' – Emilya Naymark, author of Behind the Lie, finalist for the 2023 Sue Grafton Award

"Evokes the Jazz Age at its hottest" --Richie Narvaez, author of Hipster Death Rattle

"Nancy Bilyeau has become my go-to author for brilliantly written historical suspense... Read it and be seduced." - Kris Waldherr, author of Unnatural Creatures and The Lost History of Dreams

With a heroine you can’t help rooting for, a fascinating cast of characters, and a tense, high-stakes mystery at its heart, this is a book you can’t stop reading.' – Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow

"Nancy Bilyeau draws you effortlessly into a layered story, rich in historical detail, with a strong, intelligent, determined heroine at its center. I loved Zia from page one."--Barbara Claypole White, author of The Perfect Son

'The Orchid Hour… reeks with the smell of lasagna in Little Italy, the smell of cheap gin in a 1920s speakeasy, and most importantly and most delicately with the scent of orchids at midnight… her best by far, and she’d already set a high bar.' – Timothy Miller, author of The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

The Hidden Street I Chose for The Orchid Hour

 

And now I’d like to take you behind the scenes of my writing process and explain my choice of a location for my fictional nightclub, The Orchid Hour. Some of the best-known clubs of the Roaring Twenties were either in midtown (The El Fey Club) or Harlem (The Cotton Club). I contributed a guest post to author Tony Riche’s blog on Times Square of the 1920s. Read it here. But in certain ways, I wanted to model my nightclub on Chumley’s, a real-life speakeasy in the West Village. While it was favored by literary stars like Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Eugene O’Neill, it was carefully hidden. Its Barrow Street entrance was located at the end of a nondescript courtyard, and the Bedford Street entrance to Chumley’s was an unmarked door. After all, the whole point was to hide their drinking from the police! For The Orchid Hour, I wanted to pick a place closer to the main part of Greenwich Village but on a little-known street. So I settled on MacDougal Alley. It’s a cul-de-sac that runs east off MacDougal Street in the block between West 8th Street and Waverly Place. People who love Greenwich Village history cherish MacDougal Alley.

Named after a Scotsman who was a hero of the Revolutionary War, the alley was home to the stables for the great townhouses along Washington Square North beginning in the 1830s. Despite its proximity to people who would have felt comfortable in a Henry James novel, the alley was in an area considered unsafe. The newspapers complained that this part of the city was “in the nighttime infested with base and unprincipled persons, who take advantage of the darkness in consequence of the dense foliage of the trees and the dimness of the ordinary street oil lamps to perpetrate acts of violence.”  When gas lamps were installed in 1849, there was some relief. MacDougal Alley is technically a “mews,” which means it’s a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables. Around the time that horses were replaced by automobiles, MacDougal Alley became a beacon to artists, perhaps drawn by the ivy-covered brick walls and the gas lamps. Many of the buildings were turned into artists’ studios.  Here are just a few of the people who lived off MacDougal Alley: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, had a studio on the alley, prompting horrified headlines such as "Daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt Will Live in Dingy New York Alley.” A beautiful artist’s model and silent film actress named Audrey Marie Munson dubbed “American Venus” lived there around 1915. As one newspaper put it: “ ‘Venus of MacDougal Alley,’ Whose Beauty Is Embalmed in a Thousand Sculptures.” Later a man would murder his wife in hopes of marrying Munson and that dimmed her career. Isamu Noguchi, after a stay in a Japanese internment camp in Arizona, moved to a home and studio number 33. Some of his best-known works, a series of interlocking sculptures begun in 1944, were created here.  From 1949 to 1950, Jackson Pollock lived at number 9. Audrey Marie Munson Gertrude Whitney in studio What’s MacDougal Alley like now? The cobblestones were paved over, and at some point it became a private street, locked to the public, although you can peer through the gates and see its charm. The homes are very expensive. One of the properties sold for $5 million in 2009. I must admit that whenever I wander past, I hope that someone will take note of my interest and beckon. My novel The Orchid Hour will be published on August 10th.

I stopped for a peek March 2023

MacDougal Alley

A Goodreads Giveaway of The Orchid Hour

 From July 15 to July 31, Goodreads is offering a giveaway of my historical novel, THE ORCHID HOUR. Twenty ebooks will be given away to the winners.

To enter the Goodreads giveaway, click here.

The early reviews of my novel are in!

'With a heroine you can’t help rooting for, a fascinating cast of characters, and a tense, high-stakes mystery at its heart, this is a book you can’t stop reading.' – Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow

'From the family shops of Little Italy to the bright lights of Dreamland, Nancy Bilyeau takes you on a glittering tour of a bygone New York…' – Mariah Fredericks, author of The Lindbergh Nanny

And Publishers Weekly gave the novel a starred review:

Bilyeau (The Fugitive Colors) paints a vivid portrait of 1923 New York City—particularly its insular Italian community, alluring speakeasies, and Prohibition-fueled organized crime—in this impeccably researched historical mystery. Zia De Luca, a 26-year-old widow, lives a dreary life with her in-laws and young son in Little Italy while working as a translator for a branch of the New York Public Library. Shortly after she’s asked by deputy mayor Miles G. Watkins to translate a play by Sicilian author Luigi Pirandello, Watkins is gunned down on the library steps. Due to her recent contact with the politician, Zia becomes NYPD Lt. Frank Hudgins’s primary person of interest in the murder. After a second killing much closer to her home, Zia begins to suspect that the crimes are connected to a mysterious Greenwich Village speakeasy called the Orchid Hour. Seeking answers, she starts hanging around the establishment, eventually falling in love with an employee and tasting her first morsels of happiness since her husband died. Alternating perspectives between Zia, Hudgins, and a mob stooge named Louis, Bilyeau brilliantly evokes the intoxicating grit and glamour of Jazz Age Manhattan and layers a smooth blend of suspense and romance on top. Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible. (Aug.)

The Orchid Hour will be published on August 10th!