She Walks in Beauty
April 11, 2010
This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
She Walks in Beauty
Bethany House (April 2010)by
Siri Mitchell
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Siri Mitchell graduated from the University of Washington with a business degree and worked in various levels of government. As a military spouse, she has lived all over the world, including in Paris and Tokyo. Siri enjoys observing and learning from different cultures. She is fluent in French and loves sushi.
But she is also a member of a strange breed of people called novelists. When they’re listening to a sermon and taking notes, chances are, they’ve just had a great idea for a plot or a dialogue. If they nod in response to a really profound statement, they’re probably thinking, “Yes. Right. That’s exactly what my character needs to hear.” When they edit their manuscripts, they laugh at the funny parts. And cry at the sad parts. Sometimes they even talk to their characters.
Siri wrote 4 books and accumulated 153 rejections before signing with a publisher. In the process, she saw the bottoms of more pints of Ben & Jerry’s than she cares to admit. At various times she has vowed never to write another word again. Ever. She has gone on writing strikes and even stooped to threatening her manuscripts with the shredder.
ABOUT THE BOOK
For a young society woman seeking a favorable marriage, so much depends on her social season debut. Clara Carter has been given one goal: secure the affections of the city’s most eligible bachelor.
Debuting means plenty of work–there are corsets to be fitted, dances to master, manners to perfect. Her training soon pays off, however, as celebrity’s spotlight turns Clara into a society-page darling.
Yet Clara soon wonders if this is the life she really wants. Especially when she learns her best friend has also set her sights on Franklin De Vries.
When a man appears who seems to love her simply for who she is and gossip backlash turns ugly, Clara realizes it’s not just her marriage at stake–the future of her family depends on how she plays the game.
If you would like to read the first chapter of She Walks in Beauty, go HERE.
Sally Says: For historical fiction, Siri Mitchell is my favorite writer. She takes a time period, fills it with intriguing characters and the perfect amount of detail, and creates a larger-than-life drama that’s relevant for today. Her novels don’t feel like history.
All of that is true of She Walks in Beauty. Set in New York’s Gilded Age, the book appears to take us on an innocent journey with a reluctant debutante, but the deeper into the season we go, the more we realize the game Clara must play is far from innocent. And Franklin De Vries, the man her father and aunt say she must marry, doesn’t quite seem like the kind of man she’d want to spend her life with.
Then there is the constricting corset Clara must wear even when she sleeps, the rules she must learn — how to cut someone, how to use her fan to send a message, and how to convince her young man that he needs to marry her. All so seemingly innocent. All far from it.
As the story developed, one thing that jumped out at me over and over were the ridiculous and even dangerous things women did to make themselves beautiful in society’s eyes. As much as we make jokes of the corsets of those days, there are ridiculous things society today says we have to do to be beautiful. Amazing what a hundred or so years of hindsight does for us, right?
I did have a little trouble getting into the first few chapters. There didn’t seem to be much at stake, but I knew that would change. And it did. In a big way. Before the halfway point of the book, She Walks in Beauty had turned into a page-turner filled with secrets and deception. Not to mention a realistic, satisfying ending. Whether you’re a fan of contemporary or historical fiction, you’ll find She Walks in Beauty a fascinating read you won’t be able to put down.
Comments
One Response to “She Walks in Beauty”
Great review, Sally. You almost convinced me to read this historical! Almost.