12 Stylish Novels Featuring Interior Designers

Book Summary

Interior designer Keeley Murdock is set to marry the town’s golden boy—until she catches him cheating with her maid of honor at the rehearsal dinner. In true Southern fashion, Keeley has a legendary meltdown, earning her the title of town scandal. Left humiliated and out of business as clients pull their projects, Keeley’s only hope for professional redemption comes from Will Mahoney, a wealthy outsider who hires her to restore a historic antebellum mansion.

As Keeley throws herself into revamping the grand home, she also begins to uncover long-buried family secrets tied to the property. And despite having written off love after her very public heartbreak, sparks begin to fly between her and Will.

Book Summary

After years of working as an assistant at a design firm, Jude has done her fair share of grunt work while making the lead designers look good in hopes of one day being promoted to the design team. Her dream is to help design the city’s trendiest restaurants and nightclubs.

Finally, she gets the opportunity she’s been waiting for. Jude’s boss makes her a deal: design Theo Jordan’s new restaurant and make sure he’s happy enough with the finished product to renew his design contract with the firm. If she can accomplish that, she’ll be promoted to full-time interior designer.

Unfortunately, making Theo happy is even harder than it sounds. He’s a young hot-shot-chef-turned-restauranteur who is known for being as difficult to please as he is good-looking. Everything changes after a steamy business trip, which leads to a very different deal between the two.

Book Summary

In 1908, Dorothy is bored by her socialite life, but the annual summer trips to the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia are a bright spot in her otherwise beige existence. The Greenbriar is also where Dorothy unexpectedly falls in love with an Italian racecar driver. However, her family has other plans for her – plans that seem even dull after her taste of passion and adventure.

Thirty-eight years later, as WWII comes to an end, Dorothy’s life looks nothing like the one her family mapped out for her. She’s divorced and a successful career woman, having established America’s first interior design firm. She’s now ready to tackle her dream assignment – restoring the famed Greenbrier Resort to its former glory. She’s dreaming up daring, unconventional ideas that she believes will make it even greater than before.

Book Summary

After breaking up with her fiance a year ago, Astrid Parker has been laser-focused on her interior design career. When Pru Everwood asks her to be the designer on a high-profile project to revamp the historic Everwood Inn for a popular TV show called Innside America, it’s exactly the big break she’s been working for.

Unfortunately, Pru’s granddaughter is the lead carpenter for the inn’s renovation and disagrees with all of Astrid’s ideas. Jordan’s life is in shambles, and she feels like the history of the inn is the only thing she has to hold on to. As a result, she despises every modern design decision that Astrid makes.

The showrunners love the tension and want to play it up for TV, but somewhere along the way, Jordan and Astrid’s dislike for one another develops into very different feelings. They’ll be forced to reconsider what success really means.

Book Summary

This rom-com retelling of Pride and Prejudice combines the worlds of burlesque and interior design.

After her interior design career is derailed, Liz Bennet is looking for a fresh start in NYC. She’s an executive assistant by day and a stage kitten at Manhattan’s top-tier burlesque club by night. There, she meets Will Darcy. Despite their initial spark, he makes a terrible first impression. The more times they cross paths around the city, the more heated their encounters become.

When the fate of the burlesque club is thrown into jeopardy, she’ll have to decide if she can trust Darcy in order to help protect her found family and maybe even reboot her interior design career.

Book Summary

In 1902, Daisy Harriman’s residence in NYC was undergoing renovations while they were staying at their summer home in Newport. When she needed to take a quick trip back to the city, she was astonished when the Waldorf Astoria refused to rent her a room as an “unaccompanied woman”.

Her outrage at this Victorian-era rule inspired her to create the first social club for women in New York, similar to the men’s clubs that hosted educational speakers and included sleeping quarters. At the same time, Nora is finishing her architecture training, and Elsie is was a stage actress with an eye for design.

The paths of the three women collide as part of the Colony Club project, and there is a surprising murder along the way that leads to the “Trial of the Century.”

The book is told as 92-year-old Daisy is interviewed in 1963 about her many trailblazing achievements, including being President Kennedy’s first Citation of Merit Award winner.

Book Summary

Interior designer Madison Night might look like a throwback to the 60s in her signature Doris Day-inspired clothing style, but as a business owner, she proves that she’s a very modern and independent woman.

When a killer begins targeting women dressed like her, she fears that what makes her unique might also make her dead. A local detective draws a connection between the recent crimes and a twenty-year-old cold case, and suddenly, Madison’s most trusted contractor is the lead suspect.

Book Summary

After failing out of her interior design program and getting out of a disastrous short-lived marriage, Ada is clawing her way back from rock bottom. She’s started her own business and a large ranch in Wyoming has hired her for what she hopes will be a career-making project.

Soon after arriving in Meadowlark, she finds herself at a dive bar where a handsome cowboy leaves her with a kiss most people can only dream about. She’s disappointed, thinking she’ll never see him again… until he turns out to be her new boss.

When Weston discovers that the woman from the bar is the interior designer for his dream project on his family’s ranch, he couldn’t be happier. Ada’s reaction is quite the opposite.

Book Summary

Bethany Castle is an interior designer with a perfectionist personality. She’s spent years working in her family’s house-flipping business, ensuring that every finished space looks its very best. She’s currently taking a hiatus from dating, which allows more time for her to focus on a dream of her own. She wants to find and flip a house all on her own – from framework to furnishings. But her older brother, who runs the family business, refuses to take her seriously.

A television producer gets wind of this sibling rivalry and suggests a Flip Off – a televised competition to see who can pull off the best renovation. In order to pull off a win, Bethany will need a good crew to support her. The only member of the family business construction team willing to join her side is Wes Daniels, the new guy in town. His cocky cowboy ways get under Bethany’s skin from the start, but as they continue to work together, sparks start to fly.

Book Summary

When Rachel is fired from her management job at a Miami Beach luxury hotel – for something she didn’t even do – the single mom needs to find a new job as soon as possible. She hears about a position at a brewery hotel on Kelleys Island. The man who offered her the job over the phone sounded incredibly grumpy, but she’s desperate, so she packs up and makes the move.

When she arrives, she finds that the owner, Mason, knows a lot about brewing beer but almost nothing about running a hotel. If you can even call it a hotel – it’s barely more than a foundation and studs. She considers leaving, but she desperately needs a chance to rebuild a life for herself and her daughter Maisie. When Mason offers her full control of the design of the cabins/hotel, in addition to her management role, she decides to stay.