All That Makes Life Bright: The Life and Love of Harriet Beecher Stowe {Book Review}

I have loved the books that have been produced by Shadow Mountain this year and written by Josi Kilpack that are Historical Proper Romances. This new one, All That Makes Life Bright, The Life and Love of Harriet Beecher Stowe is a new favorite. My daughter recently read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and thoguht it was amazing. I have never read the book and also have never heard anything about her life. I actually assumed it was a black lady writing a story about her own life. While I know not all the narrative and storyline is true in these historical proper romances, I know that Josi Kilpack does a lot of research.  At the end of each book she talks about what in the book really did happen and what she did to make it more of a fictional book in each chapter. 

Synopsis:

When Harriet Beecher marries Calvin Stowe on January 6, 1836, she is sure her future will be filled romance, eventually a family, and continued opportunities to develop as a writer. Her husband Calvin is completely supportive and said she must be a literary woman. Harriet’s sister, Catharine, worries she will lose her identity in marriage, but she is determined to preserve her independent spirit. Deeply religious, she strongly believes God has called her to fulfill the roles of wife and writer and will help her accomplish everything she was born to do.

Two months after her wedding Harriet discovers she is pregnant just as Calvin prepares to leave for a European business trip. Alone, Harriet is overwhelmed-being a wife has been harder than she thought and being an expectant mother feels like living another woman’s life. Knowing that part of Calvin still cherishes the memory of his first wife, Harriet begins to question her place in her husband’s heart and yearns for his return; his letters are no substitute for having him home. When Calvin returns, however, nothing seems to have turned out as planned.

Struggling to balance the demands of motherhood with her passion for writing and her desire to be a part of the social change in Ohio, Harriet works to build a life with her beloved Calvin despite differing temperaments and expectations.

Can their love endure, especially after “I do”? Can she recapture the first blush of new love and find the true beauty in her marriage?

My Review:

At the beginning of the book the relationship between Harriet and her husband was driving me crazy. I don’t know how well I would have worked with my husband during that time period. While I do believe that for the most part a mother should be in the homes tending to the needs of their children, I do think that the husbands shouldn’t be so demanding of their wives like he was to Harriet. But she also could have done a little better, especially in the beginning when she wouldn’t even make dinner!  I wondered if their relationship would ever be good! I found it interesting how Harriet went to live with her brother and sister-in-law and the conversations that they had about being a mother and wife. We can learn so much from other women in our lives, and it was the same back then for Harriet. I’m sure Calvin and Harriet still had their moments after Harriet came home and things started working out better for them, but I love that in the end they were able to figure out how they worked best with each other.

The story can relate so much to any marriage, you go into it kind of having an expectation of how you want it to be and you struggle through those first years trying to figure out a balance. I look back and while they were hard in my own marriage and while they were hard for Hattie in the story, I think they make us better people because we are able to deal with hard things and come out stronger in the end.

This was a beautiful book written very well, it is clean and a perfect read for anyone.