Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Fortune Hunter/Daisy Goodwin/ 473 pp

This book borrows the names and basic facts of historical people and weaves a fictional story of their lives.  There is the Empress Elizabeth of Austria.  Incredibly beautiful and captivating.  She has escaped the confinement of royal life and an unsatisfying marriage to come to England to take part in the hunts.  Bay Middleton, an impoverished soldier and legendary horseman, is recruited to be her pilot in the hunts.  Charlotte Baird, a plain but clever heiress, who has captured the interest of Middleton.  But they have agreed to a secret engagement because Charlotte’s brother would not agree to the match.  Once she reaches the age of majority, they can become official without her brother’s approval.  Charlotte takes a picture of Bay and the Empress together and the camera reveals her deepest fear -- she has lost him to another woman.  Will Bay turn his back on his dreams in order to feed his obsession with the Empress?  Will Charlotte be able to forget what the camera has revealed -- that she is not the only woman in his heart?

This book is very well researched and historically accurate about the times if not about all the details of the lives of the major characters.  The author condenses what happens in seven years to one.  After I finished the book, I looked up Bay Middleton and many historians think he is the biological father of Winston Churchill’s wife, Clementine.  Her mother had an affair with Middleton before he met Charlotte and the family came to believe that Middleton, not her husband, was her father.

A great book for fans of historical fiction and Downton Abbey!

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