October, the time of witches, spooks, and people dressed up as something/one else provides a great backdrop to this month’s selections of books about ladies who existed in the shadow of more famous husbands or siblings. Overlooked? Underappreciated? Have a read and decide!
We begin with LANDSCAPE OF A MARRIAGE by Gail Ward Olmsted. When Mary Olmsted’s husband dies, leaving her a young widow with three children, she agrees to a marriage of convenience with her late husband’s brother he had urged her to consider before his death. But Mary wants more than security: she wants to win her new husband’s love and share in his work. Frederick Law Olmsted dreams of creating a green space in the center of every city. Beginning with Central Park in New York City, Frederick spends the next forty years designing parks for cities, private estates, and the nation, a loving Mary at his side. Though remaining in a traditional wife’s role, Mary’s organizational skills and business acumen provide essential, if unsung, support for his career. Their personal journey, highlighted by the momentous events that shaped the nineteenth century, illumines her husband’s dream of a country filled with public landscapes that embrace a “beating green heart”, a dream fulfilled by the work of one remarkable man and the little-known woman he married.
The woman behind another American legend is portrayed in Amy Belding Brown’s MR. EMERSON’S WIFE. Lydia Jackson enters the fascinating world of the group of writers and philosophers known as the “Transcendentalists” when she marries Ralph Waldo Emerson. But her dreams of participating as an equal gradually fade as she finds herself consigned to domesticity, birthing and caring for children and managing all the routine duties required in running a household, even one inhabited by a genius. Disillusioned and lonely, she finds herself drawn to charismatic family friend Henry David Thoreau and tempted to reach for more than friendship. Lydia’s journey illustrates every married woman’s struggle to maintain a satisfying, independent life despite the stifling demands of a woman’s traditional role, her task magnified by living in the spotlight of being wed to an icon.
Tracey Emerson Wood brings us the story of another famous man’s wife in THE ENGINEER’S WIFE. Suffragette Emily Roebling is devoting her time toward social change when her husband, Washington Roebling, chief engineer of the project to build the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured and unable to work. Despite the resistance of others involved in the project, she agrees to her husband’s plea that she halt her own efforts and take over management of the bridge’s construction, under his direction. Acting as a courier with his instructions takes her from the dangerous realms deep beneath the East River to the drawing rooms of Manhattan’s elite. Though some readers objected to the plausible-but-unlikely romance that develops between Emily and showman P. T. Barnum, that criticism doesn’t diminish the accomplishments of this woman who presided over the building of one of the nineteenth century’s engineering wonders – even though today, few people know her name.
We complete our tour of bystanders to history with MRS. LINCOLN’S SISTERS by Jennifer Chiaverini. After Mary Todd Lincoln’s son, worried by years of his mother’s ever-more-erratic behavior, arranges to have her committed to a mental institution, Mary attempts suicide. Shocked by this event, her older sister Elizabeth gathers the other sisters – Frances, Ann, and Emily – to see what they can do to help their long-estranged sibling. Can they overcome the bitter divisions that saw their husbands fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War to help a desperate individual, once feted as First Lady, now condemned to a mental institution? A fascinating view of the dynamics within a famous First Family.
We are all drawn to tales about the lives of the famous or infamous. This month’s quartet of novels goes beyond the traditional spotlight to focus on those who stood beside—and influenced in incalculable ways—the fortunes of those who earned lasting fame. People whose deeds, if less visible, were nonetheless of incalculable importance. Deserving of more acclaim than they received? You decide!
About Julia Justiss
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
Award-winning romance author Julia Justiss, who has written more than thirty historical novels and novellas set in the English Regency and the American West, just completed her first contemporary series set in the fictional Hill Country town of Whiskey River, Texas.
A voracious reader who began jotting down plot ideas for Nancy Drew novels in her third grade spiral, Julia has published poetry and worked as a business journalist.
She and her husband live in East Texas, where she continues to craft the stories she loves. Check her website for details about her books, chat with her on social media, and follow her on Bookbub and Amazon to receive notices about her latest releases.
No Comments
Comments are closed.