Review: Loving Eleanor By Susan Wittig Albert (plus tour wide giveaway)

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok—Hick—is assigned to cover Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the wife of the 1932 Democratic presidential candidate, the two women become deeply, intimately involved. 

Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship that ends only with both women's deaths in the 1960s—all of it documented by 3300 letters exchanged over thirty years. 

 Now, New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert recreates the fascinating story of Hick and Eleanor, set during the chaotic years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War. Loving Eleanor is Hick's personal story, revealing Eleanor as a complex, contradictory, and entirely human woman who is pulled in many directions by her obligations to her husband and family and her role as the nation's First Lady, as well as by a compelling need to care and be cared for. For her part, Hick is revealed as an accomplished journalist, who, at the pinnacle of her career, gives it all up for the woman she loves. Then, as Eleanor is transformed into Eleanor Everywhere, First Lady of the World, Hick must create her own independent, productive life.

 Drawing on extensive research in the letters that were sealed for a decade following Hick's death, Albert creates a compelling narrative: a dramatic love story, vividly portraying two strikingly unconventional women, neither of whom is satisfied to live according to the script society has written for her. Loving Eleanor is a profoundly moving novel that illuminates a relationship we are seldom privileged to see and celebrates the depth and durability of women's love.

Publication Date: February 1, 2016

Persevero Press; Thorndike (Large Print)

Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Large Print

Genre: Historical Fiction/Biographical Fiction

****

This is my second book by Susan Wittig Albert, the first was A Wilder Rose (click for review). As with A Wilder Rose, Loving Eleanor was an easy book to get lost in.

 As you can read from the synopsis above Loving Eleanor is told from the point of view of Hick, friend and reporter.  This is the story of Hick in which Eleanor Roosevelt plays a key role.  There isn't anything really political taking place in this book but rather it's about friendship, forbidden love and living with the public watching your every move.

Hick was a strong woman who endured much to make it as a reporter.  The author captured that fully as well as her compassion and drive.  I never knew about this 'friendship' with Eleanor, I found it entertaining and educational at the same time.

While I remind myself that this is historical fiction the author has based this book on letters held in FDR's library.  The author's notes are extensive and I enjoyed reading them as much as the story.

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Susan Wittig Albert is the award-winning, NYT bestselling author of the forthcoming historical novel Loving Eleanor (2016), about the intimate friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok; and A Wilder Rose (2014), about Rose Wilder Lane and the writing of the Little House books. 

Her award-winning fiction also includes mysteries in the China Bayles series, the Darling Dahlias, the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, and a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries she has written with her husband, Bill Albert, under the pseudonym of Robin Paige.

 She has written two memoirs: An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days and Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place, published by the University of Texas Press. Her nonfiction titles include What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest (winner of the 2009 Willa Award for Creative Nonfiction); Writing from Life: Telling the Soul's Story; and Work of Her Own: A Woman's Guide to Success Off the Career Track. She is founder and current president (2015-2017) of the Story Circle Network and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

 For more information please visit www.susanalbert.com and www.LovingEleanor.com, or read her blog. You can also find Susan on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, and Pinterest. Like the Loving Eleanor page on Facebook.

Giveaway

Three copies of Loving Eleanor by Sisan Wittig Albert are up for grabs! To enter, please use the GLEAM form below.

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  Loving Eleanor

A Wilder Rose by Susan Wittig Albert

In 1928, Rose Wilder Lane—world traveler, journalist, much-published magazine writer—returned from an Albanian sojourn to her parents’ Ozark farm. Almanzo Wilder was 71, Laura 61, and Rose felt obligated to stay and help. To make life easier, she built them a new home, while she and Helen Boylston transformed the farmhouse into a rural writing retreat and filled it with visiting New Yorkers. Rose sold magazine stories to pay the bills for both households, and despite the subterranean tension between mother and daughter, life seemed good.

Then came the Crash. Rose’s money vanished, the magazine market dried up, and the Depression darkened the nation. That’s when Laura wrote her autobiography, “Pioneer Girl,” the story of growing up in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, on the Kansas prairie, and by the shores of Silver Lake. The rest—the eight remarkable books that followed—is literary history.

But it isn’t the history we thought we knew. For the surprising truth is that Laura’s stories were publishable only with Rose’s expert rewriting. Based on Rose’s unpublished diaries and Laura’s letters, A Wilder Rose tells the true story of the decade-long, intensive, and often troubled collaboration that produced the Little House books—the collaboration that Rose and Laura deliberately hid from their agent, editors, reviewers, and readers.

Why did the two women conceal their writing partnership? What made them commit what amounts to one of the longest-running deceptions in American literature? And what happened in those years to change Rose from a left-leaning liberal to a passionate Libertarian?

In this impeccably researched novel and with a deep insight into the book-writing business gained from her own experience as an author and coauthor, Susan Wittig Albert follows the clues that take us straight to the heart of this fascinating literary mystery.

Paperback, 288 pages

Published September 2013 by Persevero Press (first published August 28th 2013)

Copy received from netgalley for review

I think that I am part of a vast minority here when I say that I have not read the Little House
books.  While I watched the series on TV (and loved it) realizing that it was based on books
by Laura Ingalls I recall thinking that they couldn't possibly be true stories, how much bad 
stuff can happen to one family.

Rose Wilder Lane was ghost writer for the Little House books except The First Four Years.
Why not that one you ask, well I guess you will have to read the book to find out :)

Spanning from 1928 to 1939 Rose tells her story, it was like she was speaking directly to me,
the reader.  She hasn't lived at Rocky Ridge (the farm in Mansfield, Missouri) for many years
but returned when her parents, Almanzo and Laura (Mama Bess) need assistance. Then
the crash came and she was forced to give up her dreams of traveling and settle there.

The relationship between mother and daughter was interesting, not at all what I expected. The
author used Rose's journals and actually letters between Rose and Laura to write this 
interesting story. I knew absolutely nothing about Rose before reading this book and I was
surprised at the tension in this family.  It didn't take long to read this book, very entertaining
and definitely showed the authors knowledge on the Wilder family.

Susan Wittig Albert is a new author to me.  I have seen her mystery series around but never
read any of them.  This book appealed to me because of the historical aspect.  I like her
writing style, which had me engaged from the beginning and kept it going to the end.