Title: The Altamonte Hotel
Author: Marjorie Pollard
Join us for our next Florida history book club meeting back in person at the Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art where we will be discussing the book, The Altamonte Hotel. We will be joined by the author herself, Marjorie Pollard, for a special talk about her book during this month’s meeting.
Lillian Blackwell is opulently raised in Boston with an adoring father and a mother who cannot accept her daughter’s strong, independent personality. As a young adult, Lillian and her parents, attend the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, igniting her insatiable desire for all the nuances the late nineteenth century has to offer.
Her marriage of convenience to James Clayton, at her father’s insistence, allows her to become an owner of The Altamonte Hotel in Florida. On their honeymoon trip down the St. Johns River, she meets Bonner McDermott, a roque riverboat captain, who after learning of James’s death from malaria, pursues Lillian’s love interest. However, Lillian discovers she’s pregnant from her honeymoon and therefore has no time for romance.