Bibliofreakblog

The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran

I really wanted to love this book.  But I just couldn’t.  It needs a couple of more drafts before really getting there.  

The story is based on a real court case from the late 1800’s.  Henry Oades and his wife, Margaret, and their children travel from England to New Zealand, where Henry is taking a post for two years.  Some time in their second year, Margaret and her children are kidnapped by Maori.  Thinking that they are dead, Henry mourns them and moves to America.  

Skip ahead six years.  Henry meets a young widow, Nancy, and marries her.  Margaret and the kids make an escape, and eventually catch up with Henry in California.

Except now he’s married.

This would have been an incredible story, but some of the characters needed more fleshing out, the writing was stilted at times, and the pacing was off by a long shot.  

In the first part of the book, I felt Henry’s love for Margaret, but never did I get that about his new love for Nancy.  It was as if he had fallen completely out of love with Margaret, which was just plain silly, considering how he grieved for her for six years.  

I will  make one concession: perhaps I’m just taking Margaret’s side here.  I think that you can’t really help but choose a side in this story.  Johanna Moran has said as much herself.  

Yo FTC! I received a galley of this book as part of a TLC blog tour.  For more information, check out TLC’s The Wives of Henry Oades page.

 
Buy The Wives of Henry Oades on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeanette Walls
Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy by Susan Ray Schmidt
Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs by Lisa Pulitzer 
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant  
Escape by Carolyn Jessop
Daughters Of Zion: A Family’s Conversion To Polygamy by Kim Taylor 

Other works by Johanna Moran:

none.

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