New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.

One of the Washington Post's Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2021

When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.

While clearing out her grandmother's cottage for sale, Connie Goodwin finds a hidden parchment inscribed with the name Deliverance Dane. And so begins the hunt to uncover the woman behind the name, a hunt that takes her back to Salem in 1692 . . . and the infamous witchcraft trials.

But nothing is entirely as it seems and when Connie unearths the existence of Deliverance's spell book, the Physick Book, the situation takes on a menacing edge as interested parties reveal their desperation to find this precious artefact at any cost.

What secrets does the Physick Book contain? What magic is scrawled across its parchment pages? Connie must race to answer these questions - and reveal the truth about Salem's women - before an ancient family curse once more fulfils its dark and devastating prophecy . . .
Previously published in the UK as The Lost Book of Salem

Katherine Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane returns with her dazzling new historical novel, The House of Velvet and Glass, set against the backdrop of the sinking of the Titanic.

1915, and the ghosts of the dead haunt a wealthy Boston family...

Sybil Allston is devastated by the recent deaths of her mother and sister aboard the Titanic. Hoping to heal her wounded heart, she seeks solace in the parlour of a medium who promises to contact her lost loved ones.

But Sybil finds herself drawn into a strange new world where she can never be sure that what she sees or hears is real. In fear and desperation she turns to psychology professor Benton Jones - despite the unspoken tensions of their shared past...

From the opium dens of Boston's Chinatown to the upscale salons of high society , Sybil and Benton are drawn into a world of occult magic, of truth and lies, and into a race to understand Sybil's own apparent talent for scrying before it is too late.

Katherine Howe's The House of Velvet and Glass is a harrowing story of darkness and danger vanquished by the redemptive power of love.

Praise for Katherine Howe:

'Spellbinding... A terrific story' Daily Express

'A transfixing tale of black magic, hauntings and real-life tricks that will keep you up all night' Glamour

'A brilliant take on the 17th Century Salem witch trials' Mirror

Katherine Howe's family has lived in the area around Salem Massachusetts for generations dating back to the 1620s. She is a descendant of two accused Salem witches - Elizabeth Proctor and Elizabeth Howe. Katherine is a PhD candidate at Boston University. She lived in Massachusetts and New York with her husband. The House of Velvet and Glass is her second novel to be published by Penguin.