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Description
The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth CenturyFrom New York Times bestselling author Simon Baatz, the first comprehensive account of the murder that shocked the world. In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just sixteen years old, had recently moved to the city. White was forty seven and a principal in the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. As the foremost
From New York Times bestselling author Simon Baatz, the first comprehensive account of the murder that shocked the world. In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just sixteen years old, had recently moved to the city. White was forty-seven and a principal in the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity, responsible for designing countless landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Nesbit lost consciousness and awoke to find herself naked in bed with White. Telltale spots of blood on the bed sheets told her that White had raped her. She told no one about the rape until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden, a building that White had designed. The trial was a sensation that gripped the nation. Most Americans agreed with Thaw that he had been justified in killing White, but the district attorney expected to send him to the electric chair. Evelyn Nesbit's testimony was so explicit and shocking that Theodore Roosevelt himself called on the newspapers not to print it verbatim. The murder of White cast a long shadow: Harry Thaw later attempted suicide, and Evelyn Nesbit struggled for many years to escape an addiction to cocaine. The Girl on the Velvet Swing, a tale of glamour, excess, and danger, is an immersive, fascinating look at an America dominated by men of outsize fortunes and by the women who were their victims.Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Published: 02/19/2019
ISBN: 9780316396660
Pages: 400
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.40w x 1.20d
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4.3 ★★★★★
Based on 28 reviews
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 2
Not that great
Huge "The Simpsons" fan. I watched all the episodes and read a lot of the comics and enjoy most. This one however was quite boring. Turns out I'm just not a big fan of Chief Wiggum. I really enjoyed The "Homer" and "Bart" book. But not this one. Maybe if you love Wiggum you'll love it. If you're not too fond of him then I wouldn't buy it.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2013
★★★★★ 3
Good for my collection.
Format: Hardcover
This was another quick and entertaining read. This instalment wasn't as enjoyable as some of the other books but it was still good. I'm glad to have it in my collection.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2014
★★★★★ 4
Creepy, unpredictable and an all-around great read!
Format: Kindle
The power of our choices has never been more evident than in this novel. This book is filled with both good, and bad, decisions that lead to terrifying consequences. Right from the start, our protagonist, Eve, has to make a choice — should she let the family who showed up at her front door inside her home or send them back into the cold? Inevitably, Eve’s inability to say no and need to please others outweighs Stranger Danger and soon the family of five is wandering through the isolated Victorian house.
The book warns early on, “Once you let them in, they’ll never leave.” For sure once she let them in, things were never the same. The visit seems innocuous enough until things start to change. Subtle changes, the kind that makes you second guess yourself, slowly emerge and, as time goes on, transform into the kind that makes you question reality.
Eve, too, transforms throughout the book. Her character bounces through bouts of paranoia, insecurity, impulsiveness and courage, never fully landing on one attribute, although paranoia always seems to be lurking in the depths of her mind. She constantly questions her own perceptions of what is and what was and the intentions of even the most innocent interactions.
The book goes beyond the fear of what goes bump in the night and harnesses the fear of the unknown, keeping us on the edge of our seats. Nothing is as it seems. And it is scary! Kliewer’s frightening images and heart stopping encounters stay with you long after you’ve closed the book. At times, I found myself gripping my Kindle tightly and reading at lightning speed as if I, too, am escaping the sinister situations Eve faces.
All in all, this is a good read. It’s quick and easy and Kliewer sets the stage with plenty of backstory, foreshadowing, suffocating tension, and creepy moments that all manage to tie into the moment a strange family shows up at her door. However, upon finishing, I found myself left with several unanswered questions (the only reason it got 4 and not 5 stars), which can be uncomfortable for readers who need everything wrapped up on a nice neat bow. But if you can handle a little ambiguity, take the time to read this book. Trust me, it's worth your time. And it may leave you questioning if things really are as they seem or have you hesitating before taking that trek down to the basement. For me, I may reconsider answering the door should a family of five come knocking.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2024
★★★★★ 5
Definitely a page turner!
Format: Kindle
I really enjoyed this book! I was looking for a good, spooky book and this delivered. I went through all the emotions with this book; frustrated, sad, scared, confused...there was so much happening!! It was easy to get through this book because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Although I loved this book, I had a lot of questions at the end, but the author could definitely write a couple more books getting deeper into the different stories introduced. I don't want to say TOO much because I don't want to give anything away, but after I finished I was like, "Nooooo!!!" LOL So, give it a read.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2026
★★★★★ 3
A great read that leaves some loose threads
Format: Hardcover
I knew next to nothing about this book going into it other than that it was a horror novel and that my book club selected it. That’s neither a point in favor of or against the book itself, but it does become relevant in a moment because my lack of background shaped how I approached it to a certain extent.
But before we get to that, the basic premise here is that this young couple has moved into a new house. One day while only one of them is home, there’s a knock at the door. This family is there and they say they used to live in the house and want to look around. In the real world, most of us would find that a slightly awkward situation but not an entirely unheard of one. In a horror novel, you know it’s going to set things in motion that probably won’t end well for at least someone involved, and that is indeed the case. But, contrary to immediate expectations, this doesn’t shift into a home invasion story. Instead, it treats us to a bit of slow burn horror as this visiting family seem slightly “wrong” for reasons neither the reader nor characters can put their fingers on, and things ultimately lead in rather unexpected directions, though I won’t spoil too much there.
One of the interesting things I noticed quickly is that little interlude chapters throughout the book were punctuated with bits of Morse Code, which I dutifully translated as I read and which slowly began to hint at more of what was going on behind the scenes. That was a nice touch, I thought, but the novel eventually ran even further with that idea, treating us to more substantial codes and ciphers that became increasingly difficult to decrypt or translate.
Some eventually became so frustrating that I took to the Internet for aid, whereupon I discovered that to solve some of them, you actually need clues from an alternate reality game which coincided with the book’s publication, but which the novel itself never directly alluded to, so that felt like a bit of a cheat to me, though I was eventually able to gather the information needed to solve the puzzles. Ultimately, I did not find those solutions necessary to understanding or enjoying the book, so it’s not too big a deal.
The book itself was engrossing and exciting throughout but left the reader feeling like we’d only just gotten the tiniest taste of a much larger mythology, and I found myself wanting quite a bit more by the end of it, and I mean that in both a good way and a bad way. It’s good because it means I found the book so good I wanted more, but it’s bad because I found the ending left far too many loose threads for my own taste.
But if you like a book ambitious enough to risk feeling a bit convoluted and yet with a clear sense that the author always knew exactly what he was doing, I think you’ll like this one. Though it’s far from AS complex, I think it will appeal strongly to fans of House of Leaves. Both thematically and in terms of structure, I noticed certain parallels between those works.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2025
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