The Gates of Eden
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
Inspired by a true story ...
When Josephine Bell discovers how quickly one can descend from middle-class Victorian comfort to the slums of Liverpool, she makes a fateful decision.
Seeking escape from desperate poverty, the girl joins a community of kindly strangers and embarks on an epic journey across a treacherous ocean and into the North American wilderness, pulling a two-wheeled handcart over the Rocky Mountains to a remote desert kingdom.
In her new home, a Mormon settlement in the Utah Territory, Josephine is pressed into a polygamous marriage with a man almost four decades older than herself. Amidst a backdrop of rising violence and haunting tragedy, Josephine's struggle to find her own path takes her to unexpected places.
The Gates of Eden explores the timeless mysteries of faith and doubt, fear and love through the eyes of a girl on the cusp of adulthood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
LeCheminant's intriguing debut follows converts to Mormonism trekking across the U.S. in the mid-1800s. In 1855, missionaries in England have gathered new "Saints" from the destitute of Liverpool. Sixteen-year-old Josephine Bell and her mother, Elizabeth, lost everything when Josephine's father died in debt, and the two converts board a ship to America, survive typhus and dysentery on board, and land in New York. After a suffocating train ride to Iowa City, their next task is to travel 1,300 miles to Utah with nothing but a handcart meant to hold all of their worldly possessions Josephine becomes known as a "handcart maiden" but they find the promised land is not quite as promised: Josephine is forced to marry a man who already has one wife, and who's "old 'nough to be grandpa." But Brigham Young and his apostles are determined that polygamy is sacred, and they're willing to fight federal troops in order to protect the religion and its tenets. LeCheminant's story is ambitious, though sometimes weighed down by a plodding pace. This often fascinating novel will be appreciated by historical fans, particularly those seeking a look into the early days of Mormonism. (Self-published.)
