SETTING: England, 1870-71
MY GRADE: A++
SYNOPSIS: Sweeping from England's Devon coast to London, Cambridge, and finally America, this new volume in the Eden family saga is surely the best yet.
John Murrey Eden is the dominating force in the lives of the five Eden women. Lady Mary Eden, John's cousin, is the recipient of his greatest beneficence and the object of his deepest rage. Young and headstrong, Mary is stifled and eventually almost killed by John's zealous protection. When she falls in love with Burke Stanhope, a man John despises, battle lines are clearly drawn. Mary must decide if her love for Burke is stonger than her loyalty to the man who has single-handedly rescued her family from financial ruin.
Elizabeth Eden, the closest to a mother John has ever known and his staunchest supported, lives with Mary in her fashionable London home. As she watches John destroy the family she loves, even she is forced to choose a life independent of him.
Lady Lila Harrington Eden is John's charmingly free-spirited wife, whose suffering at John's behest is perhaps the most devastating of all.
Dowager Countess Harriet Eden, Mary's mother and John's aunt, lives in a self-inflicted world of darkness as penance for a sin so heinous that only she and John know of its nature.
And finally, Dhari, John's mistress, whose deep affection for John is replaced by an even stronger love for his solicitor, with catastrophic results.
From Mary's homosexual brother, who's lover dies unexpectedly, to the editor of the London Times, whose illustrious career is placed in jeopardy, John Murrey Eden makes his indelible mark on all the book's characters.
The Eden women's raging conflicts with John and their abiding love for one another provide the framework for this superbly written historical novel. As in This Other Eden, The Prince of Eden, and The Eden Passion, the reader is so caught up in the family's dramatic events that the book's ending comes all too soon.
The Women of Eden will certainly enrapture Marilyn Harris's wide audience and gain more and more devoted readers.
MY THOUGHTS: Excellent, excellent read. Many chef's kisses to you, Ms. Harris. There was never a dull moment in these 600 pages. I've had this gem in my possession for two months short of 13 years. This was deep, dark and disturbing. This takes place 9 years after the previous one, The Eden Passion, and spans one full year, May 1870-May 1871. John is said to be 37. The previous book takes place between May 2, 1851-May 3, 1861. John is 15 when it starts so he'd be 25 when it ends, making him thirty-four 9 years later when this book begins. The author has made him three years older for some reason. His blond hair is mostly gray now. He's one sick and deranged human being and I wouldn't want him any other way. I do think you should read the previous one before you read this so relationships will make sense.
John is nothing like he was in the previous book. He's a different character altogether. He seems to have lost his mind and has become a madman. He's out to make everyone miserable and truly succeeds. He's physically abusive towards women, Dhari, Elizabeth, Mary, and verbally abusive to all.
I think John's blonde wife Lila is just a few years younger than him. I got the impression she was in her early teens when John went off to war at age 17. In the previous book she had visions of all sorts and the townsfolk were scared of her but her visions were never mentioned in this book. They have a strange relationship. They only have sex when John wants another baby. She dreads it and has had many miscarriages. I assume the thought of pregnancy is why she dreads sex though it wasn't made clear. We don't really know anything of what she's like outside of the pregnancy stuff. She's basically in this story to suffer and suffer she does. They have two sons, Stephen, 4, Frederick, 2.
Dhari is John's Indian mistress who he brought home with him in the previous book. There's no interaction between her and Lila and I don't even know if Lila knows she's her husband's mistress. She did absolutely nothing for this story.
Aslam is Dhari's eighteen-year-old son who John thinks of as a son. He's kind of a bland character and I don't know why he's even in the story other than to be a cohort of John's. The only time we see him is when he's with John.
Richard, John's cousin and son of his aunt Harriet, is twenty-seven and I'm not sure if he's a student at Cambridge or what, but he lives there or near there. He's in a secret relationship with professor Bertie Nichols, who teaches there. John tries his best to ruin it, unbeknownst to Richard, since he can't stand someone being happy and hates "sodomites." It's very tragic and I didn't see what happened coming since it happened without warning. I wish it had been drawn out more and not so abrupt.
Poor Mary, John's twenty-one-year-old cousin. She's blonde and blue-eyed. She's the daughter of Harriet, John's aunt, who was married to his uncle James Eden, and younger sister to Richard. John's overly protective of her and is out to sabotage her and orchestrates something horrific. He later ships her off to Miss Veal's School for Young Females where bad things happen to her. I think Mary's a bit disturbed herself anyway because she comes on to him and contemplates suicide in front of two others.
Burke Stanhope is Mary's love interest. He's American and almost 15 years older than her. They barely know each other and I wish they'd have known each other longer and had developed more of a relationship. His mother Caroline was another pointless character. She was clearly mentally ill before the awful deed that happened. There was already so much going on in this book that that incident wasn't needed.
Every few pages for the entirety of this book and the one that came before it (and probably the first two too) the author uses the word "commenced" and it's maddening!! She also refers to several characters by their full names most of the time and I don't understand why.
Harriet was in the previous two books. We see her again in this one, much to my surprise.
See my reviews for the first three in this series:
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