When anyone asks my favorite time in history, I have two answers. First, the Civil War. Second, the Gilded Age. But most people don’t know what period that is. Think the final decades of the 19th Century. Think Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockerfellers. Think Fifth Avenue or Newport. Maybe that’s why I love that time period – I was born in Newport, wasn’t I?

And that is one reason I found the book She Walks in Beauty interesting. It’s all about the Gilded Age, and wealth, and debutantes, and…well, emptiness. For besides the fascinating background of what debutantes are required to do and suffer to keep their positions, I came away feeling that such a life is empty and vain. The book didn’t get really interesting until the last dozen chapters when – finally – the heroine faces the trials that have come and rises to the challenge.

So, yes, I still love the Gilded Age and I’ll ever be proud to be from Newport. But, I suppose, I would not want to live as a society debutante. For one, I don’t even want to imagine how tight my corset would be to gain me an 18-inch waist!

Find this book here: http://www.bethanyhouse.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&nm=&type=PubCom&mod=PubComProductCatalog&mid=BF1316AF9E334B7BA1C33CB61CF48A4E&tier=3&id=059AF71781E14D289D82FE8B7165EB73&AudId=205F4A61B07648D98551934CA40DE116


This book was provided for review by Bethany House Publishers.