Anya Seton's The Winthrop Woman

I have passed by Anya Seton's books many times. I have this unreasonable liking for her name but was afraid the she is a romance novelist. Not that I have anything against novels being romantic but when I spend my precious time on a book, I'd like to have more than just only that.

The other day I stopped once again in front of Seton's books and bravely took this book out from the lot. The author's note in the beginning was quite reassuring as to the contents and for a history buff like me this was the perfect book to bring home. At first I imagined the title talked of many women from the Winthrop family but it was about one in particular. This one's life ran rather like that in a movie with stories and sub stories strewn all over.

Elizabeth Winthrop was a cousin as well as married to one of the Winthrops. Winthrops being among the first of many puritan families to arrive from England on ships in the hopes of making a puritan community thrive away from the persecutions at home. The most famous among the ships being The Mayflower I guess. The first thirteen colonies of the US appear all over this book based mostly on documented facts. It also attests to Elizabeth's courage and iconoclastic nature even in those times and her steadfastness to the family she had. A very satisfying read filled with geographical history and of the many kinds of people who sawed the seeds to the making of this nation with open tributes to the original inhabitants. Elizabeth's first marriage to Harry Winthrop, her deep friendship with his brother Jack who was the early Governor of of the state of Connecticut, her uncle and their father John Winthrop who was the first puritan Governor, her second marriage to the prosperous goldsmith Robert with a touch of madness in him and her last and peaceful marriage to Will Hallet and her many children and her relationship to the Native American woman 'Talaka' all form a wonderful kaleidoscope of real stories and real revelations. I didn't know that New York was once a Dutch territory and was called New Amsterdam for instance. Go here , here , here and here for more on the book, the author and the heroine.