The author of the award-winning Sally Hemings now brings to life Hannah Elias, one of the richest black women in America in the early 1900s, in this mesmerizing novel swirling with atmosphere and steeped in history.

A murder
and a case of mistaken identity brings the police to Hannah Elias’ glitzy,
five-story, twenty-room mansion on Central Park West. This is the  beginning of an odyssey that moves back and
forth in time and reveals the dangerous secrets of a mysterious woman, the
fortune she built, and her precipitous fall.

Born in
Philadelphia in the late 1800s, Hannah Elias has done things she’s not proud of
to survive. Shedding her past, Hannah slips on a new identity before relocating
to New York City to become as rich as a robber baron.  Hannah quietly invests in the stock market, growing
her fortune with the help of businessmen. As the money pours in, Hannah hides
her millions across 29 banks. Finally attaining the life she’s always dreamed,
she buys a mansion on the Upper West Side and decorates it in gold and first-rate
décor, inspired by her idol Cleopatra.

The unsolved
murder turns Hannah’s world upside-down and threatens to destroy everything
she’s built. When the truth of her identity is uncovered, thousands of
protestors gather in front of her stately home. Hounded by the salacious press,
the very private Mrs. Elias finds herself alone, ensnared in a scandalous
trial, and accused of stealing her fortune from whites.

Packed
with glamour, suspense, and drama, populated with real-life luminaries from the
period, The Great Mrs. Elias brings a fascinating woman and the age she
embodied to glorious, tragic life.

“There's a temptation to think that a life like Hannah Bessie Elias's writes itself. She was born poor, pretty and so light skinned she could (and eventually would sometimes) pass for White, in an era when Black people were figuring out how to live free in a post-Civil War America. And she rose to become one of the wealthiest Black women of her day, leveraging her earnings as a sex worker to make wise real estate investments. Sex (!), race, gender, and class are all separate lenses, the author could have chosen to filter Elias's story through, and any of them would have been powerful. But in her riveting novelization of this fascinating historic figure, Chase-Riboud chooses to widen the aperture and let all the darkness and light in. The result is a stunning portrait, developed with artistry, compassion and depth, of a woman and a society you don't want to stop staring at--one that offers a new revelation every time you look.”