Author Nina de Gramont’s great-grandmother, Dona Maria Ruspoli, was 19 years old when she was made to marry the 57-year-old, twice-widowed Agenor de Gramont. Inspired by this true story, Peregrine Hill takes us back to the captivating Gilded Age and the contradictions of its “progress.” As the turn of the 20th century approached, new technology like telephones, cars and electric power was transforming how many people lived, but restrictions on women’s rights kept the lives of women stuck in the past.
Isabelle Bishop realizes the full horror of this reality soon after losing her beloved husband and three of her children in a shipwreck. With no money of her own, her only option for survival for herself, her daughter Mariah and her aging mother, is to remarry rich.
Beautiful and youthful at 36, Isabelle seems to have captured the interest of the immensely wealthy John Whitten. But when 63-year-old Whitten asks for the teenage Mariah’s hand in marriage instead, Isabelle is dumbfounded. Unfortunately, Whitten has dug up a scandal from Mariah’s past, leaving her with no choice but to marry him.
Mariah moves into her new home—Peregrine Hill, a stately house on New York’s coveted Fifth Avenue—but its grandeur is completely lost on her. The silver lining for the new Mrs. Whitten comes in the form of a maid named Hetty Maloy. Young and clever, Hetty’s hopes of one day becoming an editor have been stymied by a society that does not value such ambition in a woman. Together, Mariah and Hetty encourage and support each other as their families never have.
Secondary characters enliven the story, especially the widow Lavinia Van Wye, a friend of Whitten’s; Mr. Smythe, Whitten’s lonely right-hand-man; and Ned, Lavinia’s grandson. Gramont elevates the plot with a good dusting of parties and balls, secret romances, questionable deaths and surprising twists to keep this period novel dynamic and interesting.
Peregrine Hill sets out to entertain and succeeds. Along the way, readers will notice how its illustration of the way gender restricts access to power and money reverberates as the same issues come up, again and again, in our 21st-century lives.
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