![False Fathers: Waxwood Series: Book 2 by [May, Tam]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41RK85apzRL.jpg)
False Fathers, Waxwood Series book 2
Tam May
December 28, 2019
Dreambook Press
$11.99 Print
$.99 Ebook
Buy on Amazon
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About the Book
Sometimes no father is
better than a false father.
At nineteen, Jake Alderdice is shy, contemplative, and
passionate about art. With the death of his grandfather, shipping magistrate
Malcolm Alderdice, he becomes the new family patriarch and heir to Alderdice
Shipping and Alderdice Luxury Liner. After two years of mourning, he is ready
to add to the family honor just as all the Alderdice men have, but as an
artist, not a shipping magistrate. His plans are delayed with his mother
announces the family will be retreating to Waxwood, now a fashionable resort town
favored by the San Francisco elite, for the summer, fulfilling her father's
dying wish to "go back.”
On the train, he meets Harland Stevens, an enigmatic but
charming older man, who has come to Waxwood as chaperone and guide to his
college-aged cousin Roger and Roger's friends. Mr. Stevens, or, as he tells
Jake, "just Stevens", takes an interest in the young man's ambitions,
and introduces him to the town's most prominent gallery owner. But when Jake
takes his paintings for appraisal, the man delivers a fatal blow — Jake's
mythology-inspired paintings are too original for the market of realistic
landscape paintings favored by Gilded Age patrons.
Stevens seizes the devastated and wandering Jake and
counsels him toward a more aggressive but moralistic path to manhood inspired
by Teddy Roosevelt and Thoreau. Jake proves himself to be more studious and
serious than Roger and his friends. Impressed with the young man's
determination to take over his grandfather's business, Stevens introduces him
to The Order of Actaeon, a secret society built upon those ideals favored by
his idols.
But the path to emotional maturity and masculine identity
is, Jake learns, a complex thing in the Gilded Age. Will his journey free him
from the Alderdice family illusions, half-truths, and lies that have kept him a
child, just as it did his sister Vivian's six years before? Or will it lead him
into the world of Actaeon, where the hunter becomes the hunted?
My Review
Gilded and Privileged age slice of life
Tam May knows her stuff, and skillfully weaves a tale of, by
today’s standards, a coming-of-age story near the early days of the twentieth
century in America.
Once the reader gets past an expected but not always
practiced two-year mourning period of a family member, the adventure begins.
Genteel to the maximum, False Fathers is not an action adventure, but a
thoughtful commentary on the last principled era.
After the lengthy period of withdrawal from society, the
Alderdice family of San Francisco, shipping magnate, takes to the country for
the summer. The male heir to the Alderdice business, Jacob, has reached, or
nearly so, his majority, and must decide his future. He is a thoughtful, torn
young man who would like to practice painting, to seek a profession as an
artist instead of stepping into his familial shoes of business. His strong-willed
mother, Larissa, is willing to let him explore this fancy. Jake’s older sister,
Vivian, had her adventure some years earlier when she visited a friend of her
late grandmother. With his mother and sister always in contention, Jake slides
away from the tension and encounters a strangely compelling man chaperoning a
group of university boys on a summer lark. Jake and the man, Stevens, begin a
mentoring relationship which ends in a sobering, fate-changing reality in an
otherwise unassuming summer.
Jake was raised by his late grandfather, and is subconsciously
seeking another father figure who will guide him on his decisions for his
future. What he learns is that everyone has secrets and failings. Even his
family history is built upon secrets and failings and it is up to him to live
up to his own principles.
Written primarily from Jake’s point of view, False Fathers
is recommended for those who appreciate a little-explored period in American
history. Those who love the story of Margaret Brown (“unsinkable” Molly Brown,
without the music) or the era of suffrage, will enjoy Tam May’s Waxwood series.
About the Author
Tam May grew up in the United States and earned her B.A. and
M.A in English. She worked as an English college instructor and EFL (English as
a Foreign Language) teacher before she became a full-time writer. She started
writing when she was 14, and writing became her voice. She writes fiction about
characters who find their future by exploring their personal past influenced by
the time in which they live.Her first book, a collection of contemporary short stories titled Gnarled Bones And Other Stories, was nominated for a 2017 Summer Indie Book Award. She is currently working on a Gilded Age family saga. She is also working on a historical mystery series featuring a turn-of-the-century New Woman sleuth. Both series take place in Northern California.
She lives in Texas but calls San Francisco and the Bay Area "home". When she's not writing, she's reading classic literature and historical fiction, watching classic films, or cooking up awesome vegetarian dishes.
