Meanwhile, Back in Braintree...

In 1818 Lizzie Boyleston prepares her dear friend Abigail Adams for burial. Together they had endured great hardships keeping their family farms going while their men were caught in Revolution--Abigail a 'widow to the cause' when her husband John Adams and their son John Quincy went to France, and Lizzie as a war widow. Lizzie was trained in herbal remedies and midwifery. The Midwife's Revolt by Jodi Daynard tells the story of their home front experience.

On June 16, 1775 Lizzie heard the noise of battle and walked to Penn's Hill to look down upon Boston Harbor. The British were attacking Boston. Abigail Adams and her son John Quincy were also drawn there, and the older woman befriends twenty-one-year-old Lizzie. In her first unladylike act of courage, Lizzie borrowed the Adams horse to ride into Boston and learn her husband's fate. He had been with Colonel Prescott, trying to take Bunker's Hill. It was Prescott who gave the famous command, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" (To save gun powder!)

Making her way through Cambridge, Lizzie is shocked by carnage and suffering. She discovers the body of her beloved husband. Devastated, she loses all interest in life. But community was important in those distant days, and Abigail Adams and other neighbors bind together for support and succor. She rouses and becomes determined to make it on her own.

Abigail Adams from Remember the Ladies by Nancy Bekofske

Lizzie takes in Martha, daughter of Loyalists who returned to England, and her sister-in-law Eliza whose wealthy Loyalist parents disapprove of her involvement with an 'unsuitable attachment' that has led to pregnancy. Lizzie is attracted to Martha's brother; later Martha becomes attached to Lizzie's brother when he returns from sea. Meantime a stranger in town uses his charms on Lizzie.

Wooed by two men, Lizzie must determine if she can love again, and if so which man is worthy of her love. One of them may be a Loyalist spy. When two strange deaths show signs of belladonna poisoning, Liza decides to become a spy herself, dressing as a boy to infiltrate local pubs. The novel then focuses on a Loyalist plot to kill John Adams upon his return from France. A subplot about Eliza and her son will be spun off into Daynard's second novel in the series.

Daynard has done wonderful research. I had read Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick last year and thought of it while Lizzie looked down upon the battle in Boston. See my post at http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/05/when-yankees-realized-they-had-declared.html
I had also read a lot of biographies on Abigail and John Adams and their son John Quincy in recent years. Daynard's Abigail seems quite reasonable a portrait. There are a few issues of characters or an event not being in keeping with their times. But why quibble over a few details? It was an engaging read.

I received a free e-book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Midwife's Revolt
Jodi Daynard
Lake Union Publishing
ISBN:9781477828007
$14.95 paperback
Publication April 7, 2015