Mrs. Winchester's Biographer

De: Deanna Lynn Sletten

Narrado por: Jennifer Groberg

Was Sarah Winchester a woman of mystery or simply a strong woman who lived her life on her own terms? It will take another strong woman to ensure her story is finally told.

1918: Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, has read and heard all the newspaper stories written about her. Snob. Crazy. Insane. Spiritualist. Ghosts. Séances. The list goes on and on. At the age of 79, she’s lived an incredible life and her wealth has allowed her to live as she pleased. Sarah loves projects, and now she has one last project she wishes to complete. It’s time she compiled her life story so friends and family will know the truth once she’s gone. But with her crippling arthritis, she needs someone to help her. She hopes the young woman that her lawyer, Frank Lieb, has sent to the house will fit in with her staff and work well as her typist. Sarah knows she doesn’t have many years left, and this is a project she is determined to finish.

1918: Olivia Collins is a young single woman who has found herself in a precarious predicament. Through a mutual friend, lawyer Frank Lieb, she’s been offered a chance to work with the infamous Sarah Winchester. Olivia is nervous about meeting the elderly woman she has heard stories about all her life. But she desperately needs this job. Without it, Olivia has no idea what her future will hold.

Today: Morgan Connors is helping her mother go through her recently deceased grandmother’s possessions when she comes upon an old manuscript. The title states it is Sarah Winchester’s autobiography. Morgan works as an acquisition editor at a publisher in San Francisco and knows that no such book has ever been published. When her mother explains that Morgan’s great-great-grandmother, Olivia Collins, once worked for Mrs. Winchester, she’s intrigued. Who was Olivia Collins, and why did she have a manuscript of Sarah Winchester’s life story?

Mrs. Winchester’s Biographer tells the captivating story of Sarah Winchester’s life and how she became one of the most talked-about women of her time despite her attempts to protect her privacy.

©2023 Deanna Lynn Sletten (P)2023 Deanna Lynn Sletten

Historical Fiction Gem

I've listened to all of Deanna Lynn Sletten's books on audio and loved them. Mrs. Winchester's Biographer has been added to the titles I enjoyed. I've heard of the mystery house with stairs that lead to nowhere but didn't know much about the woman who had built the home. Sarah Winchester was a strong, very generous, but private woman. She would have fit into today's world much better than her own time.

That Mrs Winchester was not a crazy lady.

My husband and I went through the Winchester house almost 50 years ago and thought it most unusual and they told us she was crazy and believed that she had to keep building on to her house because ghosts would haunt her. It is very nice to know the truth.

Reads like a Jr. High biography.

Simplistic story telling, uninteresting minutiae that does little to shed light on the actual preoccupation with the house.