Serena Burdick Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Serena Burdick is a Chick Lit, History, and fiction author best known as the bestselling author of novels such as “The Girls with No Names” and “Girl in the Afternoon.” Burdick has been writing since she was a child and by the time she was a six-year-old, she was regaling her mother and father with stories from the play yard. She was brought up in the small town of Millers Falls and went to Bernardston’s Full Circle School, where she was one of the best students at the children’s creative writing program. But it took her many years before she got back to writing and becoming a professional author. For many years, she dreamed of becoming a professional actor and even studied to become one. As a young adult, she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College but being a nineteen-year-old at the time, she was prone to mistakes such as quitting things, which is just what she did. Burdick then moved to California and determined to get her acting career back on track, she enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. It was in college that she met the man that would later become her husband. Together they travelled all over the place and lived in places such as including New York City, Sweden, and Aspen before they decided to go back home to Franklin County. During the time she was away, she still dreamed of making it big in theater, but while she was in New York something changed.

Serena had for years tried to make a career in acting but to no avail when she enrolled for a course in writing and literature at Brooklyn College in New York. It was here that she had the breakthrough moment that would lead to her becoming an author. The head of the English department became an incredible mentor and encouraged her to pursue her passions. When she decided to write her thesis in the form of a fiction work, her mentor told her to go for it, reasoning that maybe she could be the one to succeed at doing such an outlandish thing. Once she found her voice writing her first novel, she never looked back and has gone on to write several titles since then. However, she has asserted that she had to develop that ability to get into the heads of her characters and become the character. While her first novel was never published, it inspired her to finally publish “Girl in the Afternoon” in 2016. She made a bigger splash when she wrote her first historical fiction work “The Girls with No Names” that would become an instant international bestseller.

The idea for Serena Burdick’s debut novel “Girl in the Afternoon” came from her frustration that most historical novels she researched were written from the perspective of the model or muse connected to a famous male artist. She wanted to write a novel from the perspective of a female artist trying to find her place in a world dominated by her male colleagues. She had always been surprised by the fact that many people were unaware of artists such as the impressionist Marie Bracquemond. Marie was a masterful and prolific artist rather than just a mysterious and alluring woman that modelled in a painting. But of even more intrigue to Serena were the voice of little-known women and these are the voices she particularly wanted to illuminate. Starting out, she was not sure if her novel would find an audience though she dd it because it was what her heart wanted. Fortunately, she found a publisher and agent who believed in the concept and agreed to publish the work. The novel seemed like it would be a blockbuster right out of the gate as it started getting a ton of preorders and it was not long before she got her advance. “Girl in the Afternoon” took Burdick six months to research and two years to write before it was published in 2016.

Serena Burdick’s debut novel “Girl in the Afternoon” is an opulent and rich saga bringing to life a portrait of unrequited love, fortune, and scandal. The lead of the novel is Aimee Savaray, an eighteen-year-old at the center of Belle Epoque society, given that she was privileged enough to be born into a rich family in Paris. She has always had dreams of becoming a renowned painter though she lives in a world dominated by male artists. Secretly, she also fantasizes about Henri, a boy that had been adopted by her parents and was then brought up in the same household as her. But then the Franco-Prussian war breaks out and Henri goes missing and nobody knows what has happened to him. Soon after, the wealthy and privileged life that Savaray had been used to begins coming apart. She is heartbroken by the loss of the man she had always cherished and goes on a quest to find him though it is clear that he does not want to be found. Someone in her family knows that there is a huge secret that had led to Henri leaving the only place he had called home, but he is not willing to spill the beans. To deal with her grief, she finds solace in her art where she is mentored by Edouard Manet. Through her work, she unwittingly finds Henri and Their reunion uncovers the many lies that had been kept by the Savarays. Even though these are things that had happened years ago, they threaten to tear the two apart.

“The Girls with No Names” by Serena Burdick is a combination of “The Dollhouse” and “The Home for Unwanted Girls.” The combination makes for a heartwarming and atmospheric story that looks at the history of the “House of Mercy” and the secret lives of its residents over the years. The House of Mercy is a huge mansion near Effie and Luella Tildon’s house in the town of Inwood. It is a place where wayward girls find work and over the years, the girls come to understand that even with their privileged lives, there are limits to their freedoms. But then Luella and her sister Effie discover a terrible secret their father has been keeping and suddenly Luella realizes that she can use it to do whatever she pleases. However, rebelling against her father has consequences as Effie sister wakes up one morning to find her sister has disappeared. Her father had threatened to send her to the House of Mercy and she thinks that is what had happened. She immediately starts making a plan to get her sister out of the wayward house by going there herself. But she gets caught and now she cannot leave the House of Mercy unless she can trust Mable an enigmatic girl who wants to help. Given that they need each other to get out of the House, they need to strengthen their strenuous relationship even though trust is hard to come by.