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In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later he fired both. He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel "a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction".
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, known as "Sisi", is the Princess Diana of 19th-century Europe. Famously beautiful, as captured in a portrait with diamond stars in her hair, she is unfulfilled in her marriage to the older Emperor Franz Joseph. Sisi has spent years evading the stifling formality of royal life on her private train or yacht or, whenever she can, on the back of a horse. Captain Bay Middleton is dashing, young, and the finest horseman in England. He is also impoverished, with no hope of buying the horse needed to win the Grand National....
Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.
Russia, July 17, 1918: Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia where they face a merciless firing squad. None survives. At least that is what the executioners have always claimed.
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
In early 1943, Magda Ritter's parents send her to relatives in Bavaria, hoping to keep her safe from the Allied bombs strafing Berlin. Young German women are expected to do their duty - working for the Reich or marrying to produce strong, healthy children. After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat. Only after weeks of training does she learn her assignment: she will be one of several young women tasting the Führer's food, offering herself in sacrifice to keep him from being poisoned.
In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later he fired both. He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel "a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction".
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, known as "Sisi", is the Princess Diana of 19th-century Europe. Famously beautiful, as captured in a portrait with diamond stars in her hair, she is unfulfilled in her marriage to the older Emperor Franz Joseph. Sisi has spent years evading the stifling formality of royal life on her private train or yacht or, whenever she can, on the back of a horse. Captain Bay Middleton is dashing, young, and the finest horseman in England. He is also impoverished, with no hope of buying the horse needed to win the Grand National....
Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.
Russia, July 17, 1918: Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia where they face a merciless firing squad. None survives. At least that is what the executioners have always claimed.
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
In early 1943, Magda Ritter's parents send her to relatives in Bavaria, hoping to keep her safe from the Allied bombs strafing Berlin. Young German women are expected to do their duty - working for the Reich or marrying to produce strong, healthy children. After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat. Only after weeks of training does she learn her assignment: she will be one of several young women tasting the Führer's food, offering herself in sacrifice to keep him from being poisoned.
A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge - until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth.
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline's world is forever changed when Hitler's army invades Poland in September 1939 - and then sets its sights on France. An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement.
When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe, who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature's delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.
Philippa Gregory's first story in the best-selling Wideacre trilogy. A compelling tale of passion and intrigue set in the 18th century. From the author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin's Lover. Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the 18th century, she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others.
Everyone knows Benedict Arnold - the Revolutionary War general who betrayed America and fled to the British - as history’s most notorious turncoat. Many know Arnold’s co-conspirator, Major John André, who was apprehended with Arnold’s documents in his boots and hanged at the orders of General George Washington. But few know of the integral third character in the plot: A charming young woman who not only contributed to the betrayal but orchestrated it.
Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads to the colors of the houses to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter, Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
A writer and his demons. A woman and her desires. A wife and her revenge . . .
Inspired by literature's most haunting love triangle, award-winning author Lynn Cullen delivers a pitch-perfect rendering of Edgar Allan Poe, his mistress's tantalizing confession, and his wife's frightening obsession . . . in this "intelligent, sexy, and utterly addictive" (M. J. Rose) new masterpiece of historical fiction.
1845: New York City is a sprawling warren of gaslit streets and crowded avenues, bustling with new immigrants and old money, optimism and opportunity, poverty and crime. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is all the rage - the success of which a struggling poet like Frances Osgood can only dream. As a mother trying to support two young children after her husband's cruel betrayal, Frances jumps at the chance to meet the illustrious Mr. Poe at a small literary gathering, if only to help her fledgling career. Although not a great fan of Poe's writing, she is nonetheless overwhelmed by his magnetic presence - and the surprising revelation that he admires her work.
What follows is a flirtation, then a seduction, then an illicit affair . . . and with each clandestine encounter, Frances finds herself falling slowly and inexorably under the spell of her mysterious, complicated lover. But when Edgar's frail wife Virginia insists on befriending Frances as well, the relationship becomes as dark and twisted as one of Poe's tales. And like those gothic heroines whose fates are forever sealed, Frances begins to fear that deceiving Mrs. Poe may be as impossible as cheating death itself. . . .
Good book. Not great book. Struggled to finish, got bogged down in places. Not really memorable.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
This book offers great character depictions of the "Who's Who" in 1840s and 50's New York and an enticing story with macabre elements that kept me going to see how it all ended. The portrayals of the characters is very good and the cadence of the reading is just right. It had a few "Wuthering Heights " over the top moments but it was a very enjoyable read
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
What disappointed you about Mrs. Poe?
The main characters were flat and lifeless. The author inserted the names of famous people living at the time who did not add to the trite plot. The book is fiction rather than what I had hoped would be historically factual.
What do you think your next listen will be?
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
This book started slow for me. However, once you get a few chapters in you will become hooked!
I also found the information regarding women's rights and the superiority of men at the time to be very interesting and informative. The author did a good job on research.
Don't get the idea that this is a book about women's rights. It is not.
It is a love story, drama, and thriller all wrapped up into one.
As a fan of Edgar Allen Poe's writings, I was surprised to find out that what I always believed true about his life was not. The epilogue clarifies many misconceptions that I had.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
While this book was interesting in that it gave a peek at the life and times of Edgar Allen Poe, it was so long and boring. It seemed to have to give every detail of every day, but never quite get to the action of the story. It seemed to tell the same story over and over. I'm honestly not sure who might like this book.
What do you think your next listen will be?
China Dolls by Lisa See
What about Eliza Foss’s performance did you like?
She was clear and seemed to be of the time in which the story was set. Her pronunciation and intonation were good and clear.
What character would you cut from Mrs. Poe?
I think all the characters were necessary. It is the story that lagged.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Although this historical fiction book is titled, Mrs. Poe, it is really more about Mr. Poe, and his involvement with Mrs. Osgood, another poet. Somewhat tedious at time but still an interesting look at the period.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
First of all, this is Poe, so it is suspenseful, and that was exactly as it should be. But for that reason, it is hard to review this without giving anything away.
So, generically I will say I am glad I read it, I did learn quite a bit about Poe and some about Mrs. Poe, and I learned even more about Fanny Osgood. Well researched and written from a historical standpoint, and the number of famous literary persons who appear in the book is pretty astounding. Some romantic scenes felt trite, but didn't ruin the book.
Bottom line: There is plenty to discuss -- with someone who has read the book. If you are into Poe, you will enjoy this, but I just know that the title is a gimmick.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
was predictable, drawn out, and the main character was unbelievably daft at times. The dialogue between Poe and Osgood also felt forced in portions. Overall not bad but would not be top on my must read list.
What would have made Mrs. Poe better?
a better narrator and a quicker plot.
Would you be willing to try another book from Lynn Cullen? Why or why not?
Probably not.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
Monotone, in my opinion. But it definitely led me to sleep right away!
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Edgar A. Poe and Frances Osgood definitely had a interesting relationship. Seeing it from such a perspective made me intrigued more about the real persons that I did some research of both on my own.
Any additional comments?
I actually bought the hard copy to read on my own. I just couldnt stand the narration.
Well read, well acted, and certainly food for thought. Is the Poe I have always been taught about really the Poe that was? Now, after reading this book and the author's findings, I am not so sure.