The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Title: The American Heiress

Author:  Daisy Goodwin

Publication: St. Martin’s, paperback, 2010

Genre: Historical Fiction

The American Heiress is the ninth of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Adam at Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread piles.  I have another one read but not yet reviewed and two more to read by December 31st.  Can she do it?

Plot: Cora Cash is the beautiful daughter of an affluent and ambitious mother, who wants English nobility for a son-in-law.  Following a glamorous (although marred by a fire) ball in Newport, Cora leaves behind her local admirers and heads to England with her mother and her shrewd black maid, Bertha.  Conveniently, Cora immediately encounters a very eligible bachelor, the Duke of Wareham, who is high on pedigree but low on cash, and unenthusiastically recognizes an opportunity when he sees one.  The reader, if not Cora, anticipates the obstacles in the way of turning a marriage of convenience into a relatively happy union (condescending servants, jilted lovers, shrewish mother-in-law, poor heating) but there is more to Cora than desire for status.   Cora slowly learns how to defend herself and begins to figure out what she needs to do to master her new position, act befitting a duchess, and cope with her moody husband in what turns out to be an entertaining novel. 

American Heiress by ?

Quelle coïncidence!   I found myself reading three books with the same title!  This is Book Serendipity!

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin has been on my TBR pile for quite a while.  In fact, it is part of my Roof Beam Reader Challenge and I plan to read it in the next several weeks.  It is about a Newport heiress (think Consuelo Vanderbilt or Lady Grantham) brought to England by her mother to marry into the aristocracy at the end of the 19th century.

The other two came from the library.  The American Heiress by Dorothy Eden, set slightly later, is also about a rich young American woman destined to marry an English lord - until she sets sail on the Lusitania in 1916.  Clemency does not survive but her maid does, and begins an impersonation that will change her life - if she survives.    I may have read this in my teens but that didn't stop me from devouring the entire book in an evening earlier this week!

Finally, my classmate Jeff Toobin's book, American Heiress, about Patty Hearst was chosen by my book group this month.  I will have to hustle to finish this before the Reading Group meets on October 2nd!

By the way, you cannot copyright a title. . .