My First Book Review! -The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin

The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin

Summary:

Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts’, suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.

Thoughts:

This book really held my attention. I read it in just a few days, even with a five month old baby taking up the majority of my time. Instead of cleaning and doing what I normally do when my son takes a nap, I was curling up on the couch, diving back into Cora and Ivo’s lives. I wasn’t devastated when the book ended, which sometimes happens to me (my husband can easily tell by my mood if I have had to say goodbye to my “book friends”, as he calls them), but I didn’t want it to finish. I wanted to see what happened next.

Originally, I picked up this book because someone told me it was similar to the PBS series, Downton Abbey, which I am psychotically and fanatically obsessed with. And there is a similarity in that an American girl marries a British royal, she for the title and he for the money to fix up his old, run down castle. However, in Downton, the Granthams are already married and the viewer finds out that this deal occurred many years before and that, despite the negotiations, the two are very much in love.  In The American Heiress, we get a front row seat to the ugliness of these marital arrangements, which were apparently commonplace around this time. 

The setting is beautiful, an old, musty English castle (Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssss!), with the gossiping servants downstairs and the gossiping royals upstairs.  I found myself wanting more to happen with the house and the quaint little town. I do love me an old castle and some polite English society!

Cora, the main character, is a privileged socialite who is desperate to get away from her scheming, showy mother. Cora wants to marry for love and her mother wants her to marry for a title. Cora is arrogant, bossy, and emotional, but has an innocence that made me really enjoy her. I felt for her, being so naïve in this foreign society with all of its strange social niceties. In places it is tough to read on, knowing that she is about to embarrass herself and she doesn’t have the faintest clue. I found myself angry at the characters who allowed this to happen to her and feeling her humiliation along with her.

The Duke of Wareham is a puzzling character. He is extremely moody and secretive and I never really knew what he was thinking. I felt as though I couldn’t get a handle on him, couldn’t read him well at all, which was the author’s motive, I’m sure, but still entirely frustrating. He reminded me a little (and I stress a LITTLE) of Austen’s Mr. Darcy, who, like every other female lover of British literature, I love dearly, with all of my heart, and if I wasn’t in love with my husband I would be off stalking Colin Firth. I found Wareham sexy and detached at the same time, but also somewhat two dimensional.  

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed The American Heiress and will look forward to another book by Goodwin, especially if it is set a couple hundred years ago in England. Yes, please.

Link to The American Heiress through www.bn.com