The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning

Gunning gained her fame with her first novels, "Bound" and "The Widow's War."  "The Rebellion of Jane Clarke" is taken from a small historical fact about a woman who witnessed the killing of five colonists in Boston in March 1770 that helped to spark the War of Independence.  Jane Clarke is the fictional character that embodies the true life witness.
 


Gunning has a true heroine in Clarke, a woman from a small village on Cape Cod from a family that sympathized with the crown.  Jane and her brother both moved to Boston to gain their own independence from a rather judgmental and tyrannical father.  Jane moved into the home of an aunt who appeared to have leanings toward the Sons of Liberty-- or does she?  Jane has to put up with the surreptitious comings and goings of two household employees of her aunt and feels she needs to protect her aunt from the increasingly hostile environment in Boston.

When Jane meets Henry Knox, a bookseller who leans toward the Sons of Liberty cause, it introduces some conflict into her future.  Should she accept Henry's proposal of marriage? Should she try to win back Phinnie Paine, her one-time suitor? Should she embrace her independence as a single woman for the rest of her life. If she decides not to marry, how will she make a living?

As it happens, I also started the docdrama series "John Adams" just as I finished this book.  John Adams starts where this book ends, with the March 1770 shootings and the trial in which John Adams wins a pyrrhic victory in defending Captain Preston of the British guard. 

This is a memorable fictional telling of an important period of American history as seen through the eyes of a woman. 

I loved this book and look forward to many more from Sally Gunning.

Liz Nichols

In a Guilded Cage by Rhys Bowen

Bowen has brought the story about Molly Murphy, transplant to New York City from Ireland in the beginning of the 20th century to new heights. She helps to discover whether young women friends of hers are dying of influenza or they're being poisoned. She is also deeply involved in an investigation about what happened to the parents of one of these friends, Emily, while they were supposedly missionaries in China 20 years earlier.

Meanwhile, the information she comes up with helps her beau, Police Captain Daniel Sullivan to solve some crimes having to do with the opium trade and smuggling in drugs from China.

It appears that in one of the upcoming Bowen books about Murphy he will marry her off to the dashing police captain. When she does, will he lock her into the "guilded cage" and away from her detective work? One of the main themes in the book is about how women in the 19th and early 20th centuries were almost prohibited from working outside the home once they married. Ambitious women had a real dilemma whether to follow affairs of the heart or the mind.

Good read, as usual, from Bowen.

Liz Nichols

Stealing Athena by Karen Essex

This is the kind of book I thoroughly enjoy from first page to last. It takes a small historical fact and builds a story around it that is, at least, plausible, if not in every detail true. I came away feeling I knew a lot more about both the British Georgian empire-building period and the Age of Pericles when the Parthenon was built.

The two simultaneous stories take the "diplomatic" coup of British Earl of Elgin in bringing to Great Britain a number of the frieses and columns from the Parthenon during his stay as Ambassador to Turkey. Despite what we may feel about the appropriateness of taking another country's artifacts, during the Napoleonic period it was really a matter of seeing them destroyed by the French or the Turkish, or taking possession of as many artifacts as possible for Great Britain.

The heroine of the 19th century part of the tale is Mary, Countess of Elgin, who was a trail-blazer as a woman in diplomatic circles within an Islamic country and managed to charm both men and women among the Turkish. Without her persistence and charming, and culturally sensitive social skills, her husband would never have been able to pull off the artistic and cultural feat of bringing so much of Greek antiquity to Great Britain.

The additional, and more speculative story, is that of Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, who may have been the inspiration for the face of Athena at the Parthenon. This ancient story is not exploited in as much detail, but we do get a flavor of the Greek world in the Age of Pericles and the role of women during that time.

I strongly recommend this title for anyone who enjoys historical fiction for either the Napoleonic period, Ottoman Empire history or the history of the Greek Golden Age.

Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper

Harper is known as the bestselling author of "The Last Boleyn," so her credentials in historical fiction are well established. The latest book does not disappoint.

This is as close as we can know to the "real" story behind "Shakespeare in Love." If you liked the movie, you'll love the book. The author makes every effort to be historically accurate. She seems to take few literary liberties, and this is the kind of history that is easy to turn into colorful fiction.

Essentially, the historical fragments back up the story that William Shakespeare had a second wife with whom he grew up and married before his "shot gun" marriage to pregnant out of wedlock, Anne Hathaway. It appears that Shakespeare and his first wife lived separate lives, but were close through most of their lives. Anne Whateley supported herself by keeping the books and eventually taking over her father's transport business. She spent most of her time in London, where Shakespeare settled also.

The author contends that Anne Hathaway tacitly accepted this arrangement, just as long as she and her children were economically supported to their liking by the Bard.

Interesting read. I devoured it in a couple sittings.

Liz Nichols