Customer Reviews

Patriot Hearts: A Novel of the Founding Mothers

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Barbara Hambly is clearly a talented writer and writes well researched fiction. The stories in this book are compelling and interesting but the book is extremely hard to read. I normally finish a book in three days... this book took me three weeks to read and I almost gave up on it before finishing. Why? The viewpoint shifts from chapter to chapter to different women (many of whom share the same name). There is more than one Abigail, Nabby, Mary, etc. No warning is given when the viewpoint changes and the shift is often confusing and misleading. I had to read several chapters more than once and still couldn't figure out whose story I was reading! The subject matter is wonderful and the historical details are fascinating but the effort required to read the book may be too much for some people.

Barbara Hambly writes that PATRIOT HEARTS "is a book about the relationships of four women --- Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Sally Hemings and Dolley Madison --- with their families, with their men, with the societies they lived in, with the choices their men made...and with one another."

The setting changes from the cities of Philadelphia and Washington, to the pastoral farm and plantation lands these women called home. The action begins in Washington City on August 24, 1814. Dolley Madison gathers household goods, personal belongings and memorabilia from her past three predecessors into a rough cart. Forced to flee the city due to approaching British troops, she gives in to her staff's demands. Admiral Cockburn has pledged to parade James and Dolley Madison through the streets, shackled and fettered. Dolley's concern is for her "Jemmy," not herself. They plan to join one another safe in the countryside, far from the chaos of the Washington scene.

Hambly uses chronology to keep the reader focused on the happenings of the times about which she writes. In 1787, life at Mount Vernon Plantation in Fairfax, Virginia, centers on planning the next season's crops, tending to the gardens and sharing in the care of a family, complete with grandchildren. Martha's heartrate rises with the announcement of a visitor, James Madison. Since George retired from active military command after the revolt against England, Madison has been pressing him to become the new country's first President. George has refused, but now there is a new urgency in Madison's vocal thundering.

Martha had joined her husband in his winter encampments during the war years, warring within herself about her personal loyalties: home at Mount Vernon with children and family, or at the side of her husband near the battlefield. It is a choice she cannot condemn or condone. For years, she is convinced that public life has destroyed her family's stability.

Abigail Adams rushes to her daughter Nabby's side to welcome her first grandchild into the world. In the eight war years, Nabby had grown more quiet and withdrawn as a child; Abigail often wonders if her little girl will break a long period of silence. Now, the shared bonds of motherhood will begin the healing process. Nabby's husband, Col. William Smith, is not the soulmate Abigail would have chosen.

Dolley Madison continues with her escape plan in 1814 and remembers her own initial experience with life apart from a strict Quaker upbringing, dictated by a stern father. She is being coerced into marriage with a Quaker man, John Todd, whom she doesn't love; instead, she wants to marry a man who will make her smile.

The fourth patriot woman recorded in this book is Sally Hemings, mistress of Thomas Jeffferson. Sally, a mulatto slave woman, holds a unique place in presidential history, from the perspective of one who does not entertain as the President's hostess. Instead, she keeps the home plantation healthy, yearning for Jefferson's return there. His daughter, Patsy, retains control of Washington entertainment. Before his election, Jefferson has been outspoken about states' rights. Widowed, he is an ambassador to France when Patsy is a young girl; he has formulated much of his political ideology. Sally accompanies them to France and lives publicly as his mistress. Social mores in France are more accepting of interracial coupling than in the American culture. When their return to the United States is imminent, Sally faces the hard choice of remaining in France as a free woman or living her former life as a slave.

All in all, PATRIOT HEARTS is well-written and holds the reader's interest. Martha Washington, though a reluctant Presidentress, becomes the steadfast thread linking the other three. Hambly shows the evolution of political change in Washington but spices history with her own take on the personalities of the women involved.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

I've read Barbara Hambly books for a number of years and I'm delighted to see her turning her talents to historical fiction. Patriot Hearts is not, as the author notes in the introduction, a four in one biography but rather scenes of these four remarkable women during different times of their turbulent lives. That is both a strength and weakness of this book, in my opinion. Just when I was totally engrossed in one segment, the plot jumps around to another one of the four at another time of their lives. On the plus side, Hambly does a superb job of telling what these women sacrificed for their country, as well as their men. Families disrupted, long absences from home and from each other and more than a little danger of losing their lives or their husbands. Martha Washington's tangled family relations, Abigail Adams' isolated life in New England (when she wasn't in Europe with John) and of course, the great enigma, Sally Hemings. No one knows how Sally Hemings really felt about Thomas Jefferson but Ms. Hambly does a creditable job of sorting out this most complicated relationship. My favorite is Dolley Madison and you feel with her a nerve jangling tension as she waits at the doomed White House for her President husband to return. The uncertainty of true chaos as order shatters around her only increases one's admiration of her.
Even though some of the skipping around may frustrate you a bit, I still highly recommend this book.

In Patriot Hearts, Barbara Hambly takes on the novelization of some very public women: the wives and mistress of the first four American presidents. Each chapter explains "what happened" from a different woman's viewpoint, and the events cover 20 or 30 years, which might be a distraction for some readers. It does, as another reviewer mentioned, slow the book down.

But overall, Hambly succeeds admirably.

That doesn't surprise me in the least. I've been reading Hambly's fiction for 20 years, and she is an absolute master (mistress??) of time, place, and setting. She does a great job of making you aware of what it feels like to _be there_, whether it's at the bedside of a sick child or an escape through revolutionary Paris.

This book also works because it's about a time period that most of us studied in American History in High School in a vague arm wave. "And after the American Revolution, there was some unrest, so Washington came back in 1789 to be our first president." Then it's a fast-forward to the war of 1812, without much attention to details. While, in a way, the process of living the "new dream" of liberty (not just creating it with a declaration of independence or fighting a war to gain it) is the more interesting tale. And we see it from these women's eyes.

But for me, what made the book enjoyable is that it's ultimately love stories. They aren't always happy love stories (and the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave/mistress Sally is presented as a tumultuous one), but these women actively stood by their men during difficult circumstances in a troubled time. I like to think of the devotion between the couples; it reminds me that they were just people doing what seemed right at the time.

Where I found the content of the book interesting, it was presented in such a broken up way to be very confusing at times. I had a hard time figuring out where I was at the time and remembering where I had left off with this character the last time she was talked about. I found myself very frustrated and wound up skimming to finish the book just in case something interesting would come in, that I wouldn't want to miss. But on the whole, the book was very disappointing.

This is a very enjoyable book, and Barbara Hambly is a very good author.
While reading this book, I had to compare the first fifty years of our Country with the current times. There are a lot of similarities.

In her afterword to PATRIOT HEARTS, Barbara Hambly apologizes for contending that quadroon Sally Hemmings loved Thomas Jefferson. IMO, she should apologize for the whole book!

Her contention is that George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison would have been nothing without their long-suffering wives. In her view, it is the wives who created the environment that allowed the men to do what little they did. While the dates and events of the book are factually accurate, she rewrites American history in portraying the women as having great influence on the outcomes of their men's actions.

Structurally, the book is somewhat difficult to follow since it jumps from wife to wife during the same period of time. Example: we learn something about Dolly Madison, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Sally Hemmings in 1801, even though all four are scattered around the country in different places. Then when she jumps to the next set of years, it's another jumble. Never is there a consistent presentation of each woman's story.

This book is purported to be fiction. I suppose in fiction an author can fabricate anything from flying goblins to inflated portrayals of women who changed America's history. I, as a student of American history with a special interest in the Federalist period, cannot bring myself to "buy" Hambly's storyline.

The history was just plain bad, especially in regards to George Washington, who wrote copious letters to stay in contact, regarding the state of the new nation. He wasn't a reluctant leader as portrayed by Hambly, and he welcomed any visitor who had information about the state of the government. That's why when he was asked to be the president of what has become known as the Constitutional Convention, he agreed to do it. He knew that his reputation would provide the credibility that the convention needed, and he knew and trusted these men to be doing what was best for the nation.

I've no idea why Sally Hemmings was included in the story because there's just not enough historical documentation to make the story plausible.

I did check out Hambly's bibliography, it was seriously lacking in biographies, regarding the men in these women's lives, which would have provided a better perspective. Hambly would have known about Washington's correspondence had she done so, which would have given the Washington storyline more credibility.

Some authors can pull off the change in narrators, but Hambly didn't. It made the story feel choppy.