Mistress Suffragette
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A young woman without prospects at a ball in Gilded Age Newport, Rhode Island is a target for a certain kind of “suitor.” At the Memorial Day Ball during the Panic of 1893, impoverished but feisty Penelope Stanton draws the unwanted advances of a villainous millionaire banker who preys on distressed women—the incorrigible Edgar Daggers. Over a series of encounters, he promises Penelope the financial security she craves, but at what cost? Skilled in the art of flirtation, Edgar is not without his charms, and Penelope is attracted to him against her better judgment. Initially, as Penelope grows into her own in the burgeoning early Women’s Suffrage Movement, Edgar exerts pressure, promising to use his power and access to help her advance. But can he be trusted, or are his words part of an elaborate mind game played between him and his wife? During a glittering age where a woman’s reputation is her most valuable possession, Penelope must decide whether to compromise her principles for love, lust, and the allure of an easier life.
Customer Reviews
Fascinating view through different lens
( Disclaimer: I won this book from GoodReads and the publisher)
“Never toast your enemies. It accords them too much power”
Penelope Stanton, oldest of two daughters of Newport scion Phillip Stanton, is caught between the old order and the new age. As the panic of 1893 comes crashing in, it leads the way for suffrage and abolitionist outcry that drown out the once Gilded Age of money equally power in a chess game where the children become the game pieces in keeping things solvent.
Spurred by her first beau in part because of the downtrend in finances, Penelope becomes what at first she abhorred: a Suffragette. Intelligent enough to find her voice as well as her abilities, she breaks out of the mound to become one who rallies for justice across the board.
“Literary archeologist” Diana Forbes pens this look at the revolution and change in the lives of women in the late 1800s with spark and a “joie de vive” that is easily caught the deeper one gets into this story. Recommended.