Masquerade

After an incredibly busy week, my body has decided it is time for rest. I was so grateful to the Lord on Tuesday when he carried me through a busy day and kept my pain to a manageable level. Sometimes are important days I have so much pain that I'm unable to do what I need/want to, and I get so frustrated having to cancel plans or change my schedule. So making it to everything I needed to this week was a true blessing, especially in the midst of the damp, windy weather. If that means today I rest in bed (other than getting Mia to dance class early this evening), so be it. It just means I can read more!

Masquerade by Nancy Moser is inspiring and moving historical fiction about Gilded Age New York. Charlotte Gleason has lived all of her nineteen years in blissful ignorance of the troubles of the world around her. Spoiled by her parents, she has beautiful clothing,a group of well-heeled wealthy friends, and servants to care for her every need, especially personal maid, Dora who has been her best friend since she was twelve. When her parents face scandal and a reduction in their finances they order her to New York to marry into the noveau riche Tremaine family to secure her future. Aboard the ship to America with Dora, Lottie rebels against their plan and determined to marry only for love, she switches places with Dora. Dora will become Charlotte and marry Conrad Tremaine, and  Lottie will seek her fortune in the city. Her dreams of adventure are quickly shattered and she is forced to face abject poverty and homelessness, but how can she take away Dora's chance at happiness? Both young women must determine if they can build a future on a lie. Moser's writing is always intelligent and engrossing, and this novel has far more depth than the cover reveals. Lottie discovers what really matters to her and that she will only achieve her dreams by relying on God, while Dora must choose between marriage to a good man who is wealthy beyond her dreams or a man whose trust she has destroyed but fills her heart. But it's more than a romance, it's a story of woman discovering themselves and learning what real hardship means. It's a historical romance with intelligence and heart and faith.

Thank you to Bethany House for providing me with a copy of this book for review.

Arsenic and Clam Chowder

Arsenic and Clam Chowder by James D. Livingston is a fascinating look at murder in Gilded Age New York. Mary Alice Livingston (a distant cousin of the author) was arrested in 1895 for sending her ten-year-old daughter Grace to deliver an pail of arsenic laced clam chowder to her mother Evelina Bliss in order to gain access to her inheritance. As Evelina suffered a grotesque and painful death, she informed the doctor that she was poisoned by a relative for money. The ensuing investigation and  trial would put capital punishment for women and reasonable doubt on trial for the world to see, while competing newspapers the World and Journal  wrote eloquent stories about her four illegitimate children from three different fathers. The author lays the case against Mary Alice well and captures the heightened tensions in New York City that surrounded the trial. These were the days that were filled with "trials of the century" when female poisoners haunted Victorian imaginations. I love true crime books based in this period, and this book is thoroughly enjoyable and interesting. The author finishes up with a discussion on how reasonable doubt affected this trial and how it works today. My only quibble would be that in one of the pictures included in the center of the book, the author gives away the outcome of the trial. That's a small complaint however. The images included truly help the reader to see the main characters more clearly, and the historical details he adds also bring this era to life. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Thank you to PR by the Book for providing me with a copy of this book for review!