Lose yourself in a love story set in America's front yard, the National Mall. Meet Estela the anthropologist, a flirty young woman moving into the Roaring 20's, and Nikos, an architect, vulnerable and struggling to put the Great War and Spanish flu behind him. Soulmates? Perhaps. Yet for twenty years their romance never leaves the National Mall. What keeps them apart lies within. Enter their time/space bubble where they negotiate tipping points and choose to change - or not. Only time will tell if a real place exists for them to be together.
This beautifully written historical novel tells a gentle and graceful love story, played out over 20+ years from the 1920s to the early 1940s in Washington, D.C. Love on the Mall is exquisitely constructed, using the stories of anthropologist Estela and architect Nikos to walk us through time. The experiences of these richly drawn characters are set against a gorgeous backdrop of monuments, art, architecture, museums, urban design, and photography. Even for those already awed by D.C., the book gives us new ways to see the nation’s capital, especially how the city chooses to commemorate the nation's past and mark the nation's living, breathing present. I’ll forever look at the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Tidal Basin, and other DC landmarks differently. The historical research offers a fascinating window into the growth of an important city over two unique decades. Most of all, I loved the story. It’s an emotional, lyrical meditation on how time draws us closer and sometimes separates us from the people we love, making you think about chance meetings, choices, change, and fate.
“Love on the Mall weaves romance into twenty years of the history of the National Mall, from the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 to that of the Jefferson Memorial. The lovers’ episodic encounters entwine the construction of the monumental core of the Mall. Its history is their stage.”
Lee Ann Cafferata, Historian, MallHistory.org
