Blanche Edwards
Blanche was born and raised on what is now known as Magnolia Farm, the location where her debut novel, Where the Wild Violets Grow, takes place. It is located at the end of Hull’s Neck, four miles from the little town of Edwardsville, VA. The farm looks across the fields to where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay, on the Northern Neck of Virginia. Her father, Hugh Jones, son of Fuller Jones, went to business school, barber school, and ended up farming like his father and grandfather had done before him. Her mother taught school most of her life. Blanche had two older brothers that she adored and they taught her at age five how to swim, at age six how to shoot, and later how to drive a tractor and nipper oysters. They also taught her how to hypnotize chickens. In other words, the important things in life!
She married her high school sweetheart and they were together for sixty years until his death. They had two daughters that also live on Magnolia Farm, which remains in the Jones family. Blanche completed her debut novel at the tender age of eighty-two.
Blanche’s debut novel, Where the Wild Violets Grow, will be released in 2026.
In the spring of 1852, newly married sixteen-year-old Eliza Jones settled into a life of apparent bliss in rural Tidewater Virginia. Her beautiful farm and residence, situated on Cupid’s Creek where it meets the Potomac River, offers the most tranquil and magnificent vistas imaginable. Working alongside her husband, Maurice, this new existence seems consummate, yet a profound desire for a child preoccupies her thoughts day and night. But it doesn’t take long for Eliza to discover the deep joy of motherhood, coupled with the inevitable fear and sorrow of loss.
Talk of impending war becomes a steady current throughout Virginia, though Eliza pays it little mind believing it is all far away from her home and family. But when the Civil War erupts and Virginia secedes from the Union, Maurice knows he must do his part to defend Virginia and departs for the conflict leaving Eliza to oversee the farm and family. Eliza's innate resilience and the alliances she has cultivated within her small community become her main source of strength.
