Patricia O'Brien (1)

I very much enjoyed this book about Kate, the wife of a politician. Luke is the husband in question and he is running for not just any office. He wants to be President.

This book takes you behind what goes into a successful political campaign and it isn't all that pretty as you may have guessed. Some of the things that happen honestly made my flesh crawl. But I kept reading because the story is actually really interesting and as a political junkie myself just about everything that happens seems plausible.

SPOILERS:

As much as I liked the book..and I liked it alot..I so wanted for Kate to tell Luke to get lost at the end. I know that is not what her character would do. But I really disliked Luke and I was not impressed with his turn around at the end.

Kate is the most interesting character in the book and it was like a (somewhat sleazy) but fascinating peek into DC politics. A well written and interesting book.… (meer)

Historical fiction centering on two remarkable American women of the 19th Century -- Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton.

O'Brien ties the two together with a fictional character, Susan Gray, who accompanies Alcott when she worked as a nurse in Washington, DC, during the Civil War, then later works with Barton in her unflagging efforts to identify the Civil War dead.

Both Alcott and Barton are crisply and believably drawn; however one does wish that somewhere along the way an editor would have picked up O'Brien's confusion between coal and kohl, as it was repeatedly jarring to read how Barton "outlined her eyes with coal".… (meer)

The Glory Cloak by Patricia O’ Brien
3 stars
Two of my favorite childhood heroes are depicted in this historical novel, Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton. The story is told through Susan, a fictional cousin of the Alcotts, who goes with Louisa to nurse the civil war wounded. After the war Susan aides Clara Barton in her quest to identify the dead and missing soldiers of the war. I found the story somewhat disappointing. It seemed to be trying too hard to link the lives of these historical figures. Somehow it just didn’t ring true. I find that I’m more interested in the sources that O’Brien cited in her Afterward section.

… (meer)