Written by Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether follows Charley, a woman who’s brother recently passed and has moved in with her niece, as she begins working with a general contractor Sam to restore a pre-Revolution war of a fictional war hero. This novel also follows Lydia Wilde, the sister of the war hero, and Jean-Philippe de Sabran, a French marine who, along with a second Frenchman, has been placed into her home as a prisoner of war and an officer during the Seven Years War.
This novel shows us a section of American history, okay, a few, that we don’t like to talk about, but that effected many things. Kearsley does a superb job with all of her novels in researching facts to weave into the tale. Prisoners of war, in the 1700s, were treated very differently then they were now. The officers were often treated with honor, or tried to, but she also shows us that not everyone kept to their statements. French soldiers were taken, and some were beaten despite the agreement that was made.
This novel also deals with slavery, in a way that really sheds light on a variety of views that were held at the time.
Both romances were slow, as most of Kearsley’s are, but they were sweet and terribly easy to spot from the beginning.
However, despite how much I loved this book, the beginning was slow. It was hard to get into. After about an hour or so of reading I finally had real interest in reading it (besides the fact that the due date to get it back to the library was coming up). The most compelling characters were the historical. The modern day set up had Rachel, the niece, but we really didn’t get to know her much at all. The only characters in the modern world I found myself caring about were Sam, the contractor, and the mysterious happenings in the Wilde house.
Overall this was still a wonderful book and I would highly recommend it to anyone with the temper of: it is a slow book. There isn’t a lot of action and fast movement. Which does rather match how real life often flows. It is but a few moments that really push everything forward.
EASTER EGG: This novel does reference a character from A Desperate Fortune but it is subtle. I will have to buy the book and read it more closely a second time to find any other references to her other books.
