When Jacquelyn Cook wrote River of Fire for Heartsong Presents, she sent along a photograph of Fendall Hall, a mansion in Eufaula, Alabama, that served as the inspiration for her "River Series." Attention to detail is a trait of every Jacquelyn Cook romance: Many of the characters are based on real people and the events she writes about really happened.

When River of Fire was published, Mrs. Cook realized a dream come true: A book signing party at Fendall Hall, including models dressed in period costumes from her book!

Fans of Mrs. Cook will be pleased with her latest Heartsong Presents release, Rivers Rushing to the Sea. Readers will be able at last to satisfy their curiosity about Mignonne, a minor character in Beyond the Searching River, who was just coming of age by that book's end. Although Mrs. Cook was reluctant to consider another book, after thinking about it for a few days she decided she could not disappoint her many loyal readers.

A Step Back in Time

Fendall Hall was built between 1856 and 1860 by Edward Young, one of bluff city's leading citizens of his day. Fendall Hall is considered to be one of the region's outstanding examples of Italianate architecture.

The spacious entrance hall, which runs the length of the house, features a black and white marble floor, antique crystal chandelier, and a walnut staircase, Waterford crystal chandeliers in the parlors hang from gold-leaf medallions. Perhaps the most notable features of the historic home are the hand-painted interiors done by a traveling artist named Le Franc, who decorated the parlors and entrance hall when the house was refurbished in the 1880's.

The old home embodied the elegant lifestyle of the South just before the Civil War. Fendall Hall was also one of Eufaula’s most prominent residences in the Empire Days of the 1880's. During this period Youngs’s daughter, Anna Beall Young Dent, and her husband, Stouten Hubert Dent, extensively remodeled the home.

It was during this remodeling that Le Franc hand-painted the interior walls downstairs. Mrs. Dent also commissioned an elaborate polychromatic exterior paint scheme, the purchase of new furnishings and the landscaping of the extensive grounds.

Heartsong Headlines, Volume 2, Number 6

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