Dreamland

Nancy Bilyeau

From Shelf: Platinum Reviews (April 2020)

Dreamland is a novel of suspense, inspired by the early life of Peggy Guggenheim and other real-life people from the tumultuous years between the Gilded Age and First World War.

'Nancy Bilyeau's passion for history infuses her books' - ALISON WEIR The year is 1911 when twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is invited to spend the summer in America's Playground. The invitation to Coney Island is unwelcome. Despite hailing from one of America's richest families, Peggy would much rather spend the summer working at the Moonrise Bookstore than keeping up appearances with New York City socialites and her snobbish, controlling family. But soon it transpires that the hedonism of Coney Island affords Peggy the freedom she has been yearning for, and it's not long before she finds herself in love with a troubled pier-side artist of humble means, whom the Batternberg patriarchs would surely disapprove of. Disapprove they may, but hidden behind their pomposity lurks a web of deceit, betrayal, and deadly secrets. And as bodies begin to mount up amidst the sweltering clamor of Coney Island, it seems the powerful Batternbergs can get away with anything... even murder. Extravagant, intoxicating, and thumping with suspense, bestselling Nancy Bilyeau's magnificent Dreamland is a story of corruption, class, and dangerous obsession.