The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin

 

The Children's Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin tells the story of a deadly snowstorm that roared through the Great Plains on January 12, 1888. It hit during the time that many children were in school with teachers little older than themselves.

Benjamin crafted her telling of that day from the actual oral histories of some of the survivors. Sisters Raina and Gerda Olsen, both schoolteachers, are caught in the storm with their students. Anette, a young girl whose mother sold her into servanthood with the Pedersen family, gets lost trying to get home from school with her friend Fredrik, but they end of spending the night in a ravine. Gavin Woodson, a newspaperman, reports the many stories of that day.

An Indianapolis native, Melanie Benjamin is The New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue. She lives with her husband in Virginia. She usually weaves her historical fiction around people, but in this instance, she chose to write about an event.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 11, 2020.

I’d like to thank Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict

 

Author Marie Benedict has selected Agatha Christie as the latest historic woman to have her story told in The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, coming out in January 2021.

Archibald Christie just had to have Agatha Miller in his life even though she was engaged to someone else. Once married, his feelings for her seemed to slowly diminish until she seemed more of a nuisance to him than someone he loved and coveted. They had married in 1914, had their only child Rosalind in 1919, and the marriage just faded away as he pursued other women.

Although she never discussed it, Agatha Christie went missing in 1926, and her husband was put off because she apparently interrupted a weekend with his lover when the police fetched him because his wife was missing. Her empty wrecked car caused a manhunt to find the mystery writer. She would turn up 11 days later claiming loss of memory when she actually had been creating her best mystery ever.

Marie Benedict has once again beautifully created the story of a famous woman as she did with Mrs. Einstein and Mrs. Churchill. A lawyer who graduated from Boston University Law School, Benedict focused on History and Art History at Boston College as an undergraduate. I wonder who she will next create as she pursues the hidden stories of famous women. Marie Benedict’s subjects don’t always interest me, but her writing draws me in each time.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 8, 2020.

I’d like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.