Winter Park gives main character energy in 'Happy Wife'

The authors explain how the city and a number of local haunts became a lavish — and sometimes dark — setting for the novel featured by Jenna Bush on the Today Show

Aug. 12, 2025

By Beth Kassab

Kendall Shores writes about Winter Park like a local because she is one.

Her parents met at Rollins College and married in Knowles Memorial Chapel. She attended Park Maitland, Trinity Preparatory and Winter Park High, where she rowed crew.

She’s seen the glitter of Park Avenue and the dirt swept under the rugs in the old-guard historic homes and the ultra modern mansions that surround the central district.

So when Shores talked to co-author Meredith Lavender about a setting for their debut novel “Happy Wife” she felt called to draw on her personal experience.

“I said, ‘Look, I know everyone thinks their hometown is interesting, but hear me out,'” Shores recalled. “… I think we understand that readers really enjoy a strong sense of place. And Winter Park,  when you are there, has a strong sense of place.”

Cue the applause from the urban planners and preservationists.

‘Happy Wife’ throttled to the buzzsphere after the Today Show’s Jenna Bush featured it last month and called it a “delicious, fun summer” read.

City Commissioner Warren Lindsey then passed out copies at the next City Hall meeting and declared the mention not only a worthwhile book rec, but also a little atonement for the Today Show’s recent snub of Winter Park.

Not a word about the city was spoken during multiple unrelated segments filmed at Central Park for the Today Show’s third hour, which only promoted neighboring Orlando. The May appearances, coordinated by Visit Orlando, prompted Mayor Sheila DeCiccio to question the city’s future cooperation and waiver of park rental fees with the taxpayer-funded tourism marketing agency.

“They made up for it,” Lindsey said. “And we have to be able to make fun of ourselves a little bit.”

Is it any wonder the city lends itself so well to fiction?

The book is filled with local references from Interlachen Country Club to Fiddler’s Green Irish Pub and the condominium Enron’s Kenneth Lay called home when he was still with Florida Gas Co.

“Do you not like living here?” the main character, Nora, a 28-year-old whose marriage is at the center of the thriller, asks a friend.

“I like tax breaks. I like boat rides and sunsets on the lake and summer all year. But people like Autumn act like this place is $%&ing Paris or something. It’s Florida, not the %&* center of the universe.”

“You’re spicy this morning. Who hurt you? Did someone at the party try to tell you the Morse Museum is better than the MoMA again?”

Lavender and Shores, who both live in Atlanta, say they’ve heard talk of people wondering if any of the characters are based on specific individuals, but they aren’t.

All of the characters formed organically as the authors said they explored the dangers of “romanticizing your life, your partner or even your community too much” through a mystery with a number of turns.

Lavender, a television writer whose credits include “Nashville,” grew up on the north shore of Chicago and hadn’t spent much time in Central Florida.

Now, though, she’s had a proper introduction to Winter Park via Shores including, of course, the Scenic Boat Tour.

“People really have Florida in their minds as one thing and, for me, it had touches of Wisconsin and lake country and I loved that,” she said.

The co-authors expect to be in town again soon for events related to the book. Stay tuned for dates.

And there’s already another story in the works that builds on the last.

Winter Park, Shores said, continues to be the “anchor.”

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