Customer Reviews

The Widow's War

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mary Mackey is the reigning master of the historical novel in which a strong, sensitive woman confronts and overcomes the challenges of social ferment. The Widow's War takes the reader to Bleeding Kansas and the conflict between slave owners and emancipators that presages the War Between the States. Carrie Vinton rides and shoots like a man, but is every bit a sensual woman and caring mother. The righteous triumph and the scoundrels are smitten in this, beautifully written, meticulously researched, lively, fast paced novel.

I enjoyed this.. I really like Mark MacKey's writing style. I do think The Notorious Mrs. Winston is a bit better than this one tho. Whereas Mrs. Winston takes place during the Civil War, Widow's War occurs in just before the war in a much divided Kansas. The book starts in Brazil where the heroine, Carrie thinks her lover has died of disease and being left with child and unmarried, she accepts the most appealing option available to her and marries Deacon, her lover's stepbrother and travels back to the States. What Carries doesn't realize is the States is on the verge of a civil war, the main topic being slavery and she has unknowingly married into a pro-slavery family. Carrie and her former lover, William, are both abolitionists. However, that is the not the only surprise awaiting her stateside arrival. Carries soon discovers that she has been duped. William is very much alive out there somewhere, her new husband is a liar and con artist, and she is now broke to boot. Not a woman to be easily deterred, a pregnant Carrie holds a gun to her husband's head, threatens him, and runs off to Kansas to find William.

She not only finds William, but gets involved in an underground railroad movement. As tensions mount as to whether or not Kansas is going to be a slave or free state and abolotionists face constant attacks from slave holders, Deacon is hunting her down and intends to take his child away from her. Can she outrun him, protect her child, and keep her lover in the process?

The battle of good and evil is fought between two men. John Brown, an abolotionist and Henry Clark, a loose model of William Quantrill. Both of these men are portrayed as somewhat psychotic. Their characterizations were a bit extreme, causing the loss of half a star in my opinion. The other half of the star is missing due to the story being a bit rushed at times. Too much story is summed up too quickly in at least two locations. When Carrie loses a baby on the ship to America, the situation is quickly told to reader via letters she is writing to her dead mother. Later, at her Kansas home, traumatizing raids are briefly mentioned, but Carrie's own experiences with them are summed up in two sentences saying she has bad dreams and cannot remember what they are.

Good book. Great historical detail about Kansas and pre civil war tensions. I didn't realize till now how big of a role Kansas played in it. Recommended.

In 1853 in Rio de Janeiro, Carolyn "Carrie" Vinton knows she cannot grieve the loss of her fiancé, abolitionist Dr. William Saylor, as she carries his child although she is not sure what to do. That is until William's stepbrother, Deacon Presgrove, arrives in Brazil from the United States and proposes marriage; insisting it is a family matter of honor. Feeling she has no choice with her being pregnant, she accepts. They return to Kansas as husband and wife only for her to find out that she has fallen for a ruse; as William is alive and Deacon's family are slavery sympathizers.

Bleeding Kansas continues unabated and deadly. Carrie disregards her safety to find William. As the battle on the Plains remains heated and deadly, Carrie finds her beloved, but he and their and their child are kidnapped by pro-slavers. Carrie recruits the help of an African-American cavalry unit to free her beloved and their son

This is a great 1850s historical thriller that showcases how in the territory on the Great Plains the prime issue was whether a new state entered on the Free or Slavery Side of the debate. The story line is loaded with action while providing a powerful look through fully developed protagonists of Bleeding Kansas where many believe the Civil War first began rather than at Fort Sumter. Mary Mackey provides a strong Americana saga as the decade leading to the war is bloody.

Harriet Klausner

The first sentence uttered by Carrie Vinton is, "Nine days ago, I shot my husband." Before I finish the first page I see a wanted poster for a twenty-five year-old white female. In 1853, shooting her husband might not be enough to justify a wanted poster for a white woman. That is unless she crosses someone very powerful. What did Carrie do, or more precisely, to whom? Her opposition to slavery is a crime. However, she is still just a woman. Someone with a lot of money and power wants to find her. Who? Why? What will happen when he finds her?

Carrie is a strong woman with ideals and a desire to act upon them in a time when women are not supposed to think, much less act upon their beliefs. Part of her strength comes from growing up in Brazil with more freedom and fewer conventions than girls raised in the States. Carrie is steadfast in her devotion to William, the man she has loved since they met as children. Like most strong women throughout history, Carrie makes choices that are not always socially acceptable.

When her fiancé's stepbrother, Deacon, convinces Carrie that William is dead, she decides to have their baby alone rather than marry for a name. Deacon pleads with her to let him take care of her and his beloved brother's baby. Carrie wavers and eventually succumbs to the wily Deacon. He is overjoyed with his victory and settles in to enjoy the spoils. However, when he takes her money and child, his deception triggers a chain of events the fortune hunter never anticipated. His country is fighting the Civil War, but he is headed for his own private war with a woman who does not intend to lose.

The characters are well developed, as is the entire plot and story line. There is steady action. There is also war, intrigue, romance, and adventure. War is never pretty, and Mackey does not sugarcoat the realities of life, death, and war in the 1800's. Her descriptions are picturesque and detailed. The historical research and story flow are impeccable too.

The interaction is so realistic that readers may forget this is a fictional novel. Because the story wraps around the romance and the trials endured by William and Carrie, there may be a stronger appeal to the female audience. However, many men will enjoy it for the historical framework. This story sped along and kept me reading way past bedtime for days. I know I will read this book more than once.

The Historical Note and Chronology sections that precede the The Widow's War are a help to readers who are not history buffs. They also provide a point of reference for the reader.

by Penny Leisch
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

How interesting, I had no idea Kansas territory was such a hotbed over the slavery issue well before the Civil War. Raised in Brazil, Carrie Vinton recovers from a sickness that has swept over Rio de Janeiro and taken both her father and her fiancé, Dr. William Saylor. Finding herself pregnant (but wealthy), she is gulled into trusting William's step-brother and agrees to marry him and return to Washington. She loses the baby on the voyage, but worse is yet to come as she discovers her husband and father in law (a powerful senator) are pro-slavery and plan to use her wealth to promote their agendas in Kansas Territory. Carrie discovers that William did not die and she abandons her husband in the hopes of finding her beloved in Kansas. Will she succeed? Can the two lovers survive as the pro slavery and abolitionist factions ignite the countryside? Will the evil Desmond be able to wrest his child back from Carrie and William?

That all sounds pretty promising and while I did enjoy the book and learning about this period along with such a strong willed female character (no helpless victim here), there were just a few shortfalls that kept this from being a great book. I'm not terribly fond of the present tense, which supposedly brings an *immediacy* to the story, but I just didn't find myself getting sucked into either the story or the characters - I was always on the outside looking in. Worse yet, was the black and white nature of the characters pro-slavers = very very bad evil mean awful people and abolitionists = very very good kind honest people. It's a shame, because the history the story is based upon sounds fascinating and I'd love to see a big fat meaty book on the topic. If it's a period you want to learn more about, don't be afraid to give it a whirl, it usually is just me who's in the minority (but I'm used to that). Three stars.

Mackey recreates the prophetic years leading to the Civil War, when Confederate batteries fire on Fort Sumter in 1861, officially beginning a war that will divide brother from brother, north from south. Although there are many reasons for the numerous pre-war conflicts in the Kansas territories, this novel addresses whether Kansas will join the Union as a free state or a slave state. While pro-abolitionists flock to the territories, pro-slavery interests grow equally as passionate in Washington and Missouri. The abolitionists stake their claim in Lawrence, Kansas. While this battle of ideologies escalates in America, Carrie Vinton is engaged in another kind of drama across the ocean in Rio de Janeiro. Betrothed to pro-abolitionist Dr. William Saylor, Carrie is suddenly alone after a small pox epidemic takes her beloved father. Unable to locate William, Carrie is alone, unexpectedly rich and utterly desperate to learn the fate of the man she loves.

Mackey describes the violence of impending war from Carrie's perspective. After making a troubling decision to marry that she will later regret, Carrie returns home as the wife of Deacon Presgrove, William's half-brother. Perhaps larger than life in this novel- beautiful, intelligent, rich, abolitionist- Carrie is a women of independent mind, and proudly so, an iconic figure in a landscape dominated by males. From the establishment of Lawrence, Kansas and the fight to determine its status, to the underground railroad, the burning of the Free State Hotel, a pitched battle between elected officials in Congress, the Battle of Black Jack, John Brown and Harper's Ferry, this is an inside look at the issues leading up to the war. Caught up in a confluence of violence, hatred, greed and betrayal, Carrie commits to the cause, leading a party of African-Americans in an effort to rescue her child and William Saylor from mercenary raiders and a husband come to claim his son.

The conflicts- from 1854 to 1861 and the start of the war- are too complex for the scope of this novel, but Mackey manipulates her characters, inserting them into the action with maximum impact, humans struggling against fate, their lives insignificant on such a broad canvas. It is precisely these people who make up the population, embodying the very spirit of the Kansas territories. Mackey does an admirable job of describing this violent period in American history through the travails and triumphs of Carrie Vinton, a woman standing side by side with the oppressed willing to lay down their lives for freedom. Luan Gaines/2009.

I normally love historical fiction with a good love story thrown in, but I found these characters uninteresting and the story line pretty implausible. Some much better options that I've read are The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, the Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourne and the Wilderness series by Sara Donati. All of these have strong female lead characters and men we would all love to meet, but they also have great story lines that pull you in so you can't stop reading until you're done with the book, and then you have to start reading the next book immediately.

A very good book. An easy short read that really makes you think about rights and how far women have come - easy to compare to other civilizations and cultures, past and present.

Carrie Vinton may have left Brazil to return home to Civil War-era Kansas, but Brazil's magic never left Carrie. Without ever quite knowing how, Carrie learns how to cast and read the prophetic shells of Candomble, and accept their messages, which are not ever exactly what they seem. This is a novel that overlays impeccably-researched historical events with excitement, romance, and a sense of mystery. Others have described the plot, so I won't do that here. But I will say that this is an expertly-woven story, and a good read.

It's such a pleasure to read a piece of historical fiction from an author who does rock-solid research. Mary Mackey's books are always a page-turning read, with the added bonus that at the end you've accidentally learned quite a few fascinating facts about historical events. The Widow's War is her best yet. Few history books concentrate on the down and dirty tactics that slavery advocates employed when new states were admitted to the union in the years leading up to the Civil War. Mary Mackey brings these conflicts vibrantly to life, while staying true to the facts and slipping in the issues so skillfully that before you know it, your understanding of the underlying causes of the Civil War surpasses anything you learned in history class. If only history textbooks could be this compelling!