Synopsis

When Harriet Beecher marries Calvin Stowe on January 6, 1836, she is sure her future will be filled romance, eventually a family, and continued opportunities to develop as a writer. Her husband Calvin is completely supportive and said she must be a literary woman. Harriet’s sister, Catharine, worries she will lose her identity in marriage, but she is determined to preserve her independent spirit. Deeply religious, she strongly believes God has called her to fulfill the roles of wife and writer and will help her accomplish everything she was born to do.

Two months after her wedding Harriet discovers she is pregnant just as Calvin prepares to leave for a European business trip. Alone, Harriet is overwhelmed-being a wife has been harder than she thought and being an expectant mother feels like living another woman’s life. Knowing that part of Calvin still cherishes the memory of his first wife, Harriet begins to question her place in her husband’s heart and yearns for his return; his letters are no substitute for having him home. When Calvin returns, however, nothing seems to have turned out as planned.

Struggling to balance the demands of motherhood with her passion for writing and her desire to be a part of the social change in Ohio, Harriet works to build a life with her beloved Calvin despite differing temperaments and expectations.

Can their love endure, especially after “I do”? Can she recapture the first blush of new love and find the true beauty in her marriage?

Review

This book gave me a look into the past and what life might have been like for a woman that had more dreams than just being a mother and wife.

While this book is fiction, it is based on a real person, Harriet Beecher Stowe. While I have heard the name and know she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I really didn’t know much about her at all. This authors story, while mostly fiction, does have some truth to it. There is a section at the end of the book that goes chapter by chapter to explain what is true and where she obtained the information. All I can say is a lot of research went into this book!

All that aside, I think I identified with Harriet. I wasn’t meant to be a homemaker. Sure I love to cook, but the cleaning? no thank you! Thankfully men have evolved since the mid 1800’s and don’t always expect women to be the homemaker. But at that time, women had really no rights and not much of a voice.

Calvin is a good man but was set in his beliefs about a family due to how he was raised and his first wife. Not that any of what he learned was wrong, but to fall in love with Harriett when she was the complete opposite, you would think he might adjust his thinking. Over time he did, but it took time and others to help him understand who he married and that she was not his mother or first wife.

I really enjoyed this book especially the last half of the book. I thought that the first half of the book was slow, but it was setting everything up so that the last half would bring all of the situations to a head. I learned something about Harriet and am now curious and want to learn more about this woman who was ahead of her time.

We give it 3 1/2 paws up!

About the Author

Josi S. Kilpack hated to read until her mother handed her a copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond when she was 13. From that day forward, she read everything she could get her hands on and credits her writing “education” to the many novels she has “studied” since then. She began writing her first novel in 1998 and never stopped. Sheep’s Clothing won the Whitney award for Mystery/Suspense in 207 and Wedding Cake, book twelve in the Sadie Hoffmiller Culinary Mystery series won in 2014. Josi was also the Best of State winner in Fiction for 2012. Josi currently lives in Willard, Utah, with her husband, children and super-cute – but not very friendly – cat.

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