But May is a complex character, and she grows into a strong woman with a compelling depth by the end of the novel. In that novel, May Welland is an innocent debutante who marries Newland Archer, a man who eventually betrays her. I chose May’s name as a deliberate homage to Edith Wharton, and her novel The Age of Innocence. But the editorial team at my publisher wanted something different, and we spent months tossing things about until we came up with A Splendid Ruin, which I think now is a perfect title for it. The original title for the book was Poor Relations, which I liked because it had a double meaning, not just in the fact that May, in coming to her aunt’s house in San Francisco after her mother’s death, was a poor relation, but also because the relationships between all the characters in the book were so fraught with misunderstandings, lies and secrets. The two words are nearly an oxymoron: ruin has a negative connotation, certainly, and splendid a positive one, so how is it possible to have a splendid ruin? But in fact, May, the protagonist in the book, has exactly that, and I think the title leads you into anticipating a journey through hell but with a positive outcome. My Q&A with the author: How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Booklist calls her writing “provocative and haunting.”

Her books have been picks for Amazon Book of the Month, IndieNext, and the Historical Novel Society Editors’ Choice. Megan Chance is the bestselling, critically acclaimed author of several novels.

A splendid ruin by megan chance