By Kim
Synopsis
(from the author’s website):
For Clara Bixby, brokering mail-order brides is a golden business opportunity—and a desperately needed chance to start again. If she can help New York women find husbands in a far-off Nebraska town, she can build an independent new life away from her own loss and grief.
Clara’s ambitions are shared by two other
women, who are also willing to take any risk. Quiet immigrant Elsa hopes to
escape her life of servitude and at last shape her own destiny. And Rowena, the
willful, impoverished heiress, jumps at the chance to marry a humble stranger
and repay a heartbreaking debt. All three struggle to find their true place in
the world, leaving behind who they were in order to lay claim to the person
they want to be. Along the way, each must face unexpected obstacles and
dangerous choices, but they also help to forge a nation unlike any that came
before.
About
Kelly O’Connor McNees (from the author’s website):
Kelly O'Connor McNees is the author of two novels, The Lost Summer of Louisa May
Alcott and In Need of a Good Wife. Born and raised in Michigan, Kelly found
that books made good friends. Mary Lennox, Winnie Foster, Kit Tyler, Will
Stanton, and a dozen other characters were as real to her as any of the kids on
her block, and she decided that the best way to keep them around and provide
them with some company was to become a writer herself. Kelly received her first
rejection letter in tenth grade, from the fiction editor at
"Seventeen," and has been writing her way back ever since. In the
meantime, she has worked as a teacher and editor, and lives with her husband
and daughter in Chicago.
Review:
I
picked up this novel on the advice of several writer friends, though even
without the recommendations the cover and premise would have reeled me
in on my next visit to a bookstore. I love stories about strong, daring women.
The 19th century fascinates me. Combine these two elements and add
in an unconventional love story (or three) and I'm certainly eager to read.
In
Need of a Good Wife follows the story of three very different women: Clara, an
abandoned wife who must scrimp and save in order to survive; Elsa, a Bavarian
immigrant orphan who has lived a life of quiet, loveless servitude; and Rowena,
a hot-tempered, widowed heiress who discovers she’s not nearly as rich as she
had thought. All believe they have nothing to lose by venturing out to frontier
Nebraska, and all are changed by the experience, though none in the way she had
imagined.
A
few reviewers found Rowena completely unlikable, but I believe she
was a product of her upbringing, yet didn’t belong in the world into which she
was born. I didn’t always like her behavior, but I did understand it and never lost
my sympathy for her plight. This says a lot for McNees' skill as a storyteller.
The characters’ voices were real and distinct, and
the fictional town of Destination was a nightmare from which I hoped not to
awaken too soon.
This
novel was an enjoyable escape into the past and a confirmation of the resilience
of the human spirit.
