Customer Reviews

Hearts and Bones

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are are hundreds (maybe thousands?) of historical mystery novels out there featuring women who are out of step with their time period (i.e., heroines who appeal to our modern feminist sensibilities). Hannah Trevor is one of the only protagonists I've ever read who is actually ostracized for this incongruity. Subsequently, she is also one of the most believable historical characters I've ever met.

This is a dark tale of post-revolutionary United States. Bad things happen to good people in this series, and although it's sometimes hard to read, it's also utterly realistic. Life is very, very hard for the inhabitants of this world, and for Hannah especially.

The plot is solid and interesting but necessarily takes a backseat to the time and setting. The main characters are relentlessly intense--I wish Hannah had been able to throw her head back and laugh once or twice, but this is not that kind of story.

This is a hard book to put down, and you will come away from it feeling as though you have traveled to another world. But you might want to take a break with some light-hearted reading before embarking on the sequel.

Ten years after the Revolutionary War, life is not a paradise of liberty and equality for the residents of Rufford, Maine. Many are dead, others are traumatized by the war, and still others are embittered by a poor economy and widening disparity between the haves and have-nots. Midwife and healer Hannah Trevor lives on the fringe of respectability here, and that's pretty much where she wants to be. This first in the series paints a bleak but realistic picture of the times and the people, and the reader will learn effortlessly about such things thanks to skillful writing and an intriguing story. Being the tale of a murder-rape in the aftermath of war, this novel is not for the squeamish; there's a fair bit of brutal violence, sex and situations, though if you can watch cable television you should be okay. A bit depressing but a worthwhile read and a good mystery. I will definitely read others in the series, though I'll probably read a comedy or two in between.

THE PLOT OR PREMISE:
Hannah Trevor is a midwife in 1786 colonial America. She has 3 dead children and a dead husband, and a live daughter whose unacknowledged / unclaimed father is a neighbour. Hannah is present when the authorities discover the raped and mutilated body of another village resident, who has left behind a letter accusing some of the village elite of the crime, including Hannah's former lover.

WHAT I LIKED:
The plotting is well-done, if somewhat slow to get to the discovery of the body. So well-done in fact that this would be easily readable without the murder mystery (i.e. if it was just a historical novel about life in colonial America). And perhaps that is the highest compliment to be paid to this book -- that it works well on different levels: historical novel (the life of the midwife, the role of women), a mystery novel (who raped and killed the woman?), and, to some extent, a love story (the relationship between Hannah and Daniel, her child's father).

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
I figured out the murder mystery far too early, and I spotted other murders long before they actually happened. Fortunately, the great writing carried me to the end anyways.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
A great historical mystery, 4.00 lilypads out of 5.00.

Other:
- Source: New
- Original date of review: March 2001, updated 2011
- Tags: Amateur Detective, Crime, Fiction, Historical, Mystery, Prose, Religion, Romance

Margaret Lawrence does for the post-Revolutionary war period in Maine what Ann Perry does for the Victorian era in England, that is, bring the times to life with a good story, compelling details and just enough background to teach historical context without intruding on telling the tale. I read it on an airplane trip and was totally absorbed. I recommend this book!

I recently read Hearts and Bones by Margaret Lawrence, on
the recommendations made by my book group. I enjoyed it as an historical mystery, but I do have one important problem with the novel as a whole. Much is made of Hannah and some of the other women characters as being patchwork quilters. The problem is, the time frame of this story is late 18th century America. Most textile authorities agree that patchwork as a quilting form did not begin in this country until around 1820, when printed fabrics were becoming available and affordable to the masses due to industrialization. Ordinarily, I'd regard this as a small flaw, but in
this book, it's a pretty important theme. The image of women in the
wilderness doing patchwork is a myth mistakenly disseminated during
the Colonial Revival era around the turn of the 20th century. A flaw of this magnitude serves unfortunately as a distraction and mars the quality of the reading experience.

In "Hearts and Bones" the reader is treated to truthful historical facts of the Revolutionary War, through a rich, suspenseful mystery that bolts you to the pages. Hannah Tower, the protaginist, is a dichotomy of her time, and in that, you admire her no nonsense ways. With her, you reveal murder after murder, ever vigilantly guessing who it could be. However, Margaret Lawrence will not make the unveiling easy for you. Gripped to each clue, you anxiously puruse on, not realizing the pace you are turning the pages by. I am not a fan of the mystery genre, so to say I truly enjoyed this is high praise indeed. If you want excitement, suspense, compelling characters and intrigue, it is all brillantly weaved in this book of "Hearts and Bones."

This is simply one of the best debut novels I've ever read. Set in the years following the American Revolution, HEARTS AND BONES will make you rethink how you view both the war and its painful aftermath. The quality of the writing is so extraordinary that I read this book from cover to cover in one sitting. Lawrence's subsequent novels are also first-rate, but increasingly bleak and grim. The universe her characters inhabit is a hopeless and futile one; one I'm not sure I want to continue to revisit. But this first novel is a superb piece of writing. Don't miss it.

I so much admire this book. Beautifully written, evocative, stunning in its ability to draw character with simple details. One of the rare historicals that feels authentic in its bones. The author must have drawn on Ulrich's historical analysis of a Maine midwife, a wonderful study, but in this fictional treatment it really comes to life.

This is a dark mystery set in a small Maine community in the years following America's Revolutionary War. Nurse-midwife Hannah Trevor, working in the one business open to women, is drawn into the investigation of a women raped and murdered. One of the men accused of the horrible deed is the father of her beloved illegitimate daughter. As a single widowed woman, Hannah, who choses not to remarry, lives an unconventional life. Plus she is a fearless risk taker. As the plot unfolds, her actions, both ridiculed and admired by her community, put her life in danger.

The author's interest in the personal costs of war is clear as past hidden wartime deeds come back to haunt and even destroy members of the community. Lawrence writes of a post independence America with a huge war debt and government left in chaos, an impoverished middle and poor class weakened by increasing taxes and loss of land, a rising newly monied class greedily taking advantage of their fellow citizens, and incidents of mob violence fueled by anger and frustrations. As one character declares, "when you teach plain men and decent women to kill and kill, and show them they can be snuffed out in an instant at any fool's order, then sometimes they break, sir."

Lawrence is a lyrical writer, and this is a well written book. Also top notch is the "Afterword", summing up the state of America in the late 1780s with particular reference to the status and limited rights of women.

The first couple chapters in I thought I was really going to enjoy this book. I thought it had some of the most beautiful writing I had ever come across. I thought the heroine had potential to be interesting, the side story of an adulterous affair, an illegitimate child, and the accused pining after the heroine, all seemed to point to a really good story.

Then somehow the beautiful prose began to overshadow the actual story. Half way through I had a hard time concentrating on what was actually going on and had to force myself to pick up the book to read it. I realized that I really didn't care "who done it", I just wanted to finish the book.

It may be that it just wasn't really a book for me but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad novel. However, since I rate books based on my enjoyment of them I had to give it only three stars. You may enjoy it more than I did though.