The Visiting Girl by Madge Walls

The Visiting Girl by Madge Walls

Graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1901, Lily Paxton is out of funds and at loose ends. With no immediate family, not raised to work, and no husband in sight, she becomes a "visiting girl," going from home to home among her married friends in Philadelphia. When the visiting circuit pales, Lily disappears, leaving her best friend Caroline a note saying she is off to an adventure out West. Lily keeps to herself that she is three months pregnant and has left with a man she barely knows-a man who is not the baby's father. Twenty years later, Lily writes to Caroline from Portland, Oregon, where she is dying of leukemia, asking Caroline to come to her in her final days. Caroline leaps at the opportunity to reconcile with her long-lost friend, but soon discovers that Lily has a hidden agenda that threatens to destroy both their families. The Visiting Girl is inspired by the young life of movie star

Katharine Hepburn's mother, an early graduate of Bryn Mawr and leader of the women's suffrage movement.

Madge Walls was raised in Honolulu, where her grandparents washed ashore in 1923 from South Africa and New Zealand via British Samoa. She raised her children on Maui, where she was a licensed Realtor and instructor for many years. She was also a regular freelance contributor to the Maui News.

She got the itch to write fiction about 25 years ago, but she couldn't think of anything to write about. Then one day she picked up a murder mystery in which a Realtor sauntered in on page two: overly dressed, overly made up, overly jeweled, and with her plump little feet jammed into dangerous looking four inch heels. She was NOT a nice person, and she got nastier as the story went on. You guessed it--she turned out to be the murderer, and a very gruesome murder it was.

Madge was insulted. She was a Realtor, and many of her friends were Realtors. They were hardworking people, good parents, contributors to society in many important ways. Suddenly, she realized she had her subject. After all, a main character has to have a career. Madge knew the real estate business, and boy, was it interesting! So she sat down and started to write. Enter Laura McDaniel, Realtor, a forty-something single mother living on Maui who sells a glamorous For-Sale-By-Owner to her favorite clients.

Madge has just finished her third novel, The Visiting Girl, a historical set in Philadelphia and Portland, having retired from her recent careers of indexing nonfiction books (All Sky Indexing) and helping others write their memoirs (Memoirs by Madeline). She lives in southern Oregon, closer to her children and grandchildren. She’s having a mainland adventure and enjoying every minute of it.