Patriot Hearts: A Novel of the Founding Mothers

by Barbara Hambly

Book Overview

When Martha Dandridge Custis marries her second husband, George, she never suspects that the soft-spoken Virginia planter is destined to command the founding of a nation--or that she is to be "Lady... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553804286
• ISBN13: 9780553804287
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 430 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Historical Fiction

This is a very enjoyable book, and Barbara Hambly is a very good author. While reading this book, I had to compare the first fifty years of our Country with the current times. There are a lot of similarities.

Concurrent love stories in historical context

In Patriot Hearts, Barbara Hambly takes on the novelization of some very public women: the wives and mistress of the first four American presidents. Each chapter explains "what happened" from a different woman's viewpoint, and the events cover 20 or 30 years, which might be a distraction for some readers. It does, as another reviewer mentioned, slow the book down. But overall, Hambly succeeds admirably. That doesn't surprise me in the least. I've been reading Hambly's fiction for 20 years, and she is an absolute master (mistress??) of time, place, and setting. She does a great job of making you aware of what it feels like to _be there_, whether it's at the bedside of a sick child or an escape through revolutionary Paris. This book also works because it's about a time period that most of us studied in American History in High School in a vague arm wave. "And after the American Revolution, there was some unrest, so Washington came back in 1789 to be our first president." Then it's a fast-forward to the war of 1812, without much attention to details. While, in a way, the process of living the "new dream" of liberty (not just creating it with a declaration of independence or fighting a war to gain it) is the more interesting tale. And we see it from these women's eyes. But for me, what made the book enjoyable is that it's ultimately love stories. They aren't always happy love stories (and the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave/mistress Sally is presented as a tumultuous one), but these women actively stood by their men during difficult circumstances in a troubled time. I like to think of the devotion between the couples; it reminds me that they were just people doing what seemed right at the time.

A well-written and interesting account of four relationships during the Revolution

Barbara Hambly writes that PATRIOT HEARTS "is a book about the relationships of four women --- Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Sally Hemings and Dolley Madison --- with their families, with their men, with the societies they lived in, with the choices their men made...and with one another." The setting changes from the cities of Philadelphia and Washington, to the pastoral farm and plantation lands these women called home. The action begins in Washington City on August 24, 1814. Dolley Madison gathers household goods, personal belongings and memorabilia from her past three predecessors into a rough cart. Forced to flee the city due to approaching British troops, she gives in to her staff's demands. Admiral Cockburn has pledged to parade James and Dolley Madison through the streets, shackled and fettered. Dolley's concern is for her "Jemmy," not herself. They plan to join one another safe in the countryside, far from the chaos of the Washington scene. Hambly uses chronology to keep the reader focused on the happenings of the times about which she writes. In 1787, life at Mount Vernon Plantation in Fairfax, Virginia, centers on planning the next season's crops, tending to the gardens and sharing in the care of a family, complete with grandchildren. Martha's heartrate rises with the announcement of a visitor, James Madison. Since George retired from active military command after the revolt against England, Madison has been pressing him to become the new country's first President. George has refused, but now there is a new urgency in Madison's vocal thundering. Martha had joined her husband in his winter encampments during the war years, warring within herself about her personal loyalties: home at Mount Vernon with children and family, or at the side of her husband near the battlefield. It is a choice she cannot condemn or condone. For years, she is convinced that public life has destroyed her family's stability. Abigail Adams rushes to her daughter Nabby's side to welcome her first grandchild into the world. In the eight war years, Nabby had grown more quiet and withdrawn as a child; Abigail often wonders if her little girl will break a long period of silence. Now, the shared bonds of motherhood will begin the healing process. Nabby's husband, Col. William Smith, is not the soulmate Abigail would have chosen. Dolley Madison continues with her escape plan in 1814 and remembers her own initial experience with life apart from a strict Quaker upbringing, dictated by a stern father. She is being coerced into marriage with a Quaker man, John Todd, whom she doesn't love; instead, she wants to marry a man who will make her smile. The fourth patriot woman recorded in this book is Sally Hemings, mistress of Thomas Jeffferson. Sally, a mulatto slave woman, holds a unique place in presidential history, from the perspective of one who does not entertain as the President's hostess. Instead, she keeps the home plantation healthy, yearning for Jefferson'

Tries to do a bit too much but still a good book.

I've read Barbara Hambly books for a number of years and I'm delighted to see her turning her talents to historical fiction. Patriot Hearts is not, as the author notes in the introduction, a four in one biography but rather scenes of these four remarkable women during different times of their turbulent lives. That is both a strength and weakness of this book, in my opinion. Just when I was totally engrossed in one segment, the plot jumps around to another one of the four at another time of their lives. On the plus side, Hambly does a superb job of telling what these women sacrificed for their country, as well as their men. Families disrupted, long absences from home and from each other and more than a little danger of losing their lives or their husbands. Martha Washington's tangled family relations, Abigail Adams' isolated life in New England (when she wasn't in Europe with John) and of course, the great enigma, Sally Hemings. No one knows how Sally Hemings really felt about Thomas Jefferson but Ms. Hambly does a creditable job of sorting out this most complicated relationship. My favorite is Dolley Madison and you feel with her a nerve jangling tension as she waits at the doomed White House for her President husband to return. The uncertainty of true chaos as order shatters around her only increases one's admiration of her. Even though some of the skipping around may frustrate you a bit, I still highly recommend this book.