The Madness of Mrs. Whittaker
(The Golden City, Book Six)
By A.B. Michaels
While exploring the remote possibility of contacting her dead husband through a spirit medium, a young widow is pronounced insane and committed to an asylum against her will. As she struggles to escape the nightmare she’s been thrust into, she is stripped of everything she holds dear, including her identity and her reason to live. The fight to reclaim what is rightfully hers will test every aspect of her being, up to and including her sanity. Is she up to the task, or has her grip on reality already slipped away?
Book Six of The Golden City series, The Madness of Mrs. Whittaker explores two major forces of early twentieth century America: the religious movement called Spiritualism and treatment of the mentally ill. Like all of A.B. Michaels’ novels, it is a stand-alone read.
MY THOUGHTS
Mae Whittaker’s life has been anything but a dream thus far. With her family life in tatters, she escaped the dark hole her father was dragging her into by marrying Sinjun Whittaker – yet, she did not love him. Sinjun was merely a means to an end, a path for her to take. When Sinjun passes away, a mere bug bite causing the illness that takes him from his family and his mission, he makes Mae promise that she will open her mind to the possibility that he can visit her from the other side, that immortality exists and that when you die, you simply move onto the next world. How could Mae say no to a man lying on his deathbed?
With nowhere else to go, Mae and her young son, Liam, travel to live with Sinjun’s mother and sister. His sister, Clare, takes Mae along to the ‘mourning circle’ that she attends, a Spiritualism group, set up to help those suffering with the grief of their loved ones by reaching to the other side to commune with them. Mae only goes to fulfil her promise to Sinjun, but when, not her husband, but her late father starts sending messages across the void, Mae is shaken and her life starts to turn upside down.
Mae is such a wonderfully loving soul, and she deserves absolutely nothing that she gets in life. She is the kind of person to take the blame for things that she had no control over. She blames herself for her father’s death, and she blames herself for Sinjun’s death – she could not even keep him alive long enough for him to say goodbye to his family. Yet, how could she have? It was not her that caused the bug to bite him, not her that took the last breath from his body. The pain that Mae takes upon herself is heartbreaking to read about, and as you read, you almost want to take her into your arms and tell her that none of it is her fault, that she is an innocent in a world of villains.
I absolutely despised Mae’s mother-in-law, and for good reason. Ida Whittaker is a cold, calculative and manipulative woman, who is only out for her own gain and cares not who she destroys to get what she wants. The way she treats, and what she does to, Mae, and even to her own daughter, is utterly appalling and I can honestly say I hated her.
Mae is not alone in her trials, though she is not always aware of that. She has friends, friends who, despite being cut off from her and living far away, will always have her back and would do anything to help her. Cordie and Dove have been friends with Mae since childhood, so their bond with her is tight. Yet, there is a third person who would hate any harm to come to Mae, and that is Andre Durnat. Andre has his own ghosts, and yet, despite not knowing Mae for long, he cares for her as deep, if not more so, than Cordie and Dove do. I loved Andre’s character, for he is not only a proper gentleman, but he is a wonderful father and an incredibly loving man. He fights for what he believes in, and stands up for those that cannot stand up for themselves.
There are some ethical issues explored in this book, such as the lack of control and authority women had in the early 20th century. Mae finds herself wrongfully committed into an asylum and, because she can easily be deemed a hysterical woman, she can do nothing to convince anyone that she does not belong there. The horrors that the poor women in the asylum faced, rather than getting the help they should have been receiving, was horrifying. This was made even more so, as their families had no idea what they were going through, believing the asylum to be more of a resort for their womenfolk to relax in until they were better. On a less extreme scale, there was also the problems that women faced at work. Cordie works as a lawyer, yet she is seen as a lesser worker due to her gender. Clare, as well, is almost ridiculed about her job, told that she cannot possibly be good at numbers, and has no idea how to run the business that she has been helping to run for years.
This book is on the slightly longer side, and yet I read it in a day. I simply could not put it down. I fell in love with the characters, I shed tears with them and laughed with them. There is a mystery afoot, with Mae’s friends trying to find her, and to figure out why she is where she is, as well as Mae’s struggles with trying to escape and not knowing who she can and cannot trust. This book has been written with such finesse that it pulls you in and places you in the world that has been created. This is the kind of book that I would happily sit down and read again, for its brilliance is not something you want to experience just once.
The Depth of Beauty
The Promise
The Price of Compassion
Josephine’s Daughter
The Madness of Mrs Whittaker
Thank you so much for your review of my latest book. In certain respects, the plight of women at the turn of the twentieth century was downright frightening. We have come such a long, long way since then!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome! I really enjoyed reading it!
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