Heiress
by Susan May Warren
Reviewed by Martha Artyomenko
Two beautiful daughters of newspaper magnate, in New York, during the Gilded era, find themselves in a fight for suitors, and doing what society dictates.
Esme hates playing the games and all she really wants is to be a published author in her father’s newspaper, under her own name. Can she marry the man she loves or will find herself in a loveless marriage, to save her family?
Jinx loves all society gives! She loves the game, the chase, the clothing, and is so frustrated with her sister who seems to thwart her at every turn. She wishes her sister would hurry up and marry, so she could enter society in her rightful place. But when she overhears a private conversation between her parents, she has questions about her heritage, her parents and wonders if it will slip through her fingers as fast as sand.
This story reminded me of Siri Mitchell’s “She walk’s in beauty”. The Gilded age of suitors, corsets, high society, low society and what women were allowed and not allowed to do, made me thankful for the advances we have made in society. It also made me question if we have made quite as many advances as we think!
Susan M. Warren does an excellent job of drawing you into this story and seeing the cities through the eyes of society girls. The history she weaves through out with Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Butte, MT in 1903, a visit to the Copper King’s mansion in Butte and reveals that it was as awful of a city then as it is now. I was sad to see that she used a different name for the Copper King William Clark who lived in the Mansion then in Butte, but maybe you can’t use those names, I am not certain!
This story shows the emptiness of wealth, the striving for money and recognition are timeless, and it never really pays off. This book touches on many topics, while not going deeply into them, such as spousal abuse in the early 1900’s, deformities from corsets, suppression of women into only certain roles.
Be sure to check in later for the blog tour and contest with this book!
– Martha
I heard this was a great book. I’ll be reading it soon!
Did you mean her father??
Sorry, to clarify my comment/question. Did you mean she wanted to work for her father’s newspaper. (Very beginning of your review) She wanted to write for the Chronicle. Oliver and Charlie don’t own newspapers… that’s what I meant. Sorry for the confusion!
Ahh, yes! Thank you for catching that!