The Widow Nash (MP3 CD)

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The Widow Nash By Jamie Harrison, Elisabeth Rodgers (Read by) Cover Image
$29.95
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Staff Reviews


Historic fiction at its best, this sweeping novel features a strong woman, her brilliant but eccentric father, and the dark obsessive man who was both her father’s business partner and her ex-fiancé.  Dulcy Remfrey is in New York with her sister Carrie when she receives the distress call from Seattle.  Dulcy normally travels with her father on all his jaunts, has since she was a girl of 15, this time she stayed behind.  Walton Remfrey is an engineer and an inventor; he made a fortune traveling the world to places where the earth’s wealth can be extracted, Montana, South Africa, wherever he finds an opportunity.  Walton is obsessed with earthquakes, suspects he can find a way of understanding them, predicting their violence.  His journeys include trips to the sites of such disasters, Dulcy at his side. He keeps journals of his travels, financial affairs, and thoughts. Walton suffers from syphilis, has for twenty years, in 1904 it was still a death sentence.  The grim reaper has been kept at bay, avoiding some of the more horrific side effects of the disease, until now when it seems to have taken his mind.  His ship docked in Seattle, Walton disembarked without either his wits or the money from selling the mines in South Africa.  A fortune is missing, mislaid, and Walton makes no sense whatsoever on where he might have put the proceeds.  His business partner wants Dulcy to waste no time, come immediately and try to unravel Walton’s nonsensical patter, search his journals for clues that she might understand to find the money.  She has no desire to ever see her former fiancé, Victor Maslingen, again. But his cousin Henning promises Victor will be kept away and if she does not help decipher her father’s words, they may be ruined financially due to the loss.  

When Walton dies, the future for Dulcy is not promising; Victor believes he has her in his clutches.  Could there be another way?  On the journey to take her father’s body back east to the family for burial, Dulcy decides to find that other way.  In the Rockies, she fakes suicide disappearing into Montana and reemerges as the Widow Nash.  She must create her new life in complete secrecy, if Victor ever finds her she may not survive and he is not a man to give up easily.  Harrison’s novel travels all over the world, from Turkey to Africa, Europe, and a large swatch of the US.  It is populated by a troupe of quirky, original characters. Dulcy is a vivid heroine, brave, intelligent, and unwilling to accept the limits on women imposed by her era; instead she risks everything for life on her own terms encompassing the possibility of joy and meaning.  The writing is sublime; you can almost feel the winds that howl in Livingston Montana, the descriptions are haunting and make you feel as if you are there.

— Deon Stonehouse

Description


It is New York, 1904, and Dulcy Remfrey, despite an idiosyncratic, traveling childhood, faces the predictable life of a woman of the time. But all that changes when her eccentric father returns from his expedition to Africa without any of the proceeds from the sale of a gold mine. It seems he's lost his mind along with the money, and Dulcy's obsessive ex-fiance (and her father's business partner) insists she come to Seattle to decipher her father's cryptic notebooks, which may hold clues to the missing funds. When her father dies unexpectedly, taking the truth with him, Dulcy looks at her future, finds it unbearable, and somewhere in the northern Rockies, disappears from the train bringing her father's body home.Is it possible to disappear from your old life and create another? Dulcy travels the West, reading stories about her own death, and finds a small Montana town where she's reborn as Mrs. Nash, a wealthy young widow, free from the burden of family. But her old life won't let go so easily, and soon her ex-fiance is on her trail, threatening the new life she is so eager to create.The Widow Nash is a riveting narrative, filled with a colorful cast of characters, timeless themes, and great set pieces--Europe in summer, New York in fall, Africa in winter, and the lively, unforgettable town of Livingston, Montana. This is a book that surprises with its twists and turns, ribald sensibility, and rich historical details. And in Dulcy, Jamie Harrison has created an indelible heroine sure to capture the hearts of readers everywhere.
Product Details
ISBN: 9781538422687
ISBN-10: 1538422689
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
Publication Date: June 13th, 2017
Language: English