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Ebook360 pages5 hours
Reliance, Illinois
By Mary Volmer
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
"Reliance, Illinois has it all—mystery, politics, war; love, death, and art. Every page is a pleasure."
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Illinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings, and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there. When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother’s younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. Deeply injured by her mother’s deceptions, Madelyn soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner, prodigal daughter of the town’s founder. Miss Rose is a suffragette and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte. Madelyn, though, wants to feel beautiful and loved, and she pins her hopes on William Stark, a young photographer and haunted Civil War veteran.
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Illinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings, and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there. When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother’s younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. Deeply injured by her mother’s deceptions, Madelyn soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner, prodigal daughter of the town’s founder. Miss Rose is a suffragette and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte. Madelyn, though, wants to feel beautiful and loved, and she pins her hopes on William Stark, a young photographer and haunted Civil War veteran.
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Author
Mary Volmer
Mary Volmer was born in Grass Valley, California and lives in the San Francisco Bay area. She studied at Saint Mary’s College, California where she is presently lecturing. She also completed a Masters degree at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. This is her first novel.
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Reviews for Reliance, Illinois
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loved this book. Excellent writing, with language and descriptions (the river, the smell of snow in the air, food, clothing) that still resonate. Set in 1870s in a fictional town about where Grafton is, just below the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, this is the story of a young girl, Maddy, and her mother as they struggle to survive in a society and economic system that has no place for women outside a wealthy marriage. The necessary deceptions that people use, and Maddy's need to find the truth, propel the story along. The historical backdrop, including a visit from Sam Clemens and figures from the women's suffrage movement are all accurate and make this a richly textured story. It left me with a better understanding of the challenges women faced in that time and place, and a deeper and more nuanced consideration of why people lie or withhold information, and the power of love, the more nuanced relationship of love and truth. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved this story of a girl born with a "port wine stain" on her face. Destined never to be seen as a beauty, she and her mother flee to a town on the Mississippi River in the turbulent post-Civil War years. Her mother makes lace but no veil can shield Madelyn from stares and whispers. Madelyn finds comfort of a sort in service to the town's leading lady, a "suffragette" who secretly furnishes birth control to the town's women, when they need it. And Madelyn falls in love for the first time, with handsome, haunted William, a photographer who appears and disappears like one of his photographs developing in a dark room.