Book Description:
Kate Chase Sprague was born in 1840 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the second daughter to the second wife of a devout but ambitious lawyer. Her father, Salmon P. Chase, rose to prominence in the antebellum years and was appointed secretary of the treasury in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, while aspiring to even greater heights.
Beautiful, intelligent, regal, and entrancing, young Kate Chase stepped into the role of establishing her thrice-widowed father in Washington society and as a future presidential candidate. Her efforts were successful enough that The Washington Star declared her “the most brilliant woman of her day. None outshone her.”
None, that is, but Mary Todd Lincoln. Though Mrs. Lincoln and her young rival held much in common—political acumen, love of country, and a resolute determination to help the men they loved achieve greatness—they could never be friends, for the success of one could come only at the expense of the other. When Kate Chase married William Sprague, the wealthy young governor of Rhode Island, it was widely regarded as the pinnacle of Washington society weddings. President Lincoln was in attendance. The First Lady was not.
Jennifer Chiaverini excels at chronicling the lives of extraordinary yet little known women through historical fiction. What she did for Elizabeth Keckley in Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker and for Elizabeth Van Lew in The Spymistress she does for Kate Chase Sprague in Mrs. Lincoln’s Rival.
My Thoughts:
I love books with strong female characters and Kate Chase fits the bill. Her father is widowed for the third time and his daughter, Kate takes over the role of a wife, as far as helping him with his presence in Washington Society.
Kate organizes dinners to help her father’s political efforts and goes with him to political functions. She always gives her opinions and advise to her father and he often takes her advice. She is quite savvy in politics. Though he wasn’t able to get elected as president, as he had hoped, he was Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of treasury. In part, due to Kate.
Though Kate and Mrs. Lincoln had much in common, they were not friends but rivals.
I believe if Kate was alive today she would be a successful female politician! Instead she falls into the same fate as most women of her time. She is expected to marry, raise a family and tolerate her husbands’ mistreatment.
Though I did enjoy the book, some of it became a bit repetitive and tiresome. I think some of the book could have been tightened up with some more editing. Some parts of the book really captured my attention yet some, I just wanted to end.
I am glad I read ‘Mrs. Lincoln’s Rival’ to get to know who Kate Chase Sprague was in U.S. history.
3/5
I received the ebook version for my honest review.
About Jennifer Chiaverini:
Jennifer Chiaverini is the author of ten Elm Creek Quilts novels and An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler and An Elm Creek Quilts Album, as well as Elm Creek Quilts and Return to Elm Creek, two collections of quilt projects inspired by the series, and is the designer of the Elm Creek Quilts fabric lines from Red Rooster fabrics. She lives with her husband and two sons in Madison, Wisconsin.
Thank you for this review, Teddy Rose; it’s given me a couple of particularly helpful issues to consider in deciding whether to invest myself in this read at some point — I want to read some more of this author soon…
First, your experience of the problems with the pace of the novel is important to me; it makes me lean towards avoiding this book if I can find other better work from this author.
But more significantly, if I hadn’t read your review, I’d never have known that this particular novel features the daughter of Salmon P. Chase as a romantic heroine! I had a very memorable, intense reading experience with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s *Team of Rivals* — as I am sure many readers do too The four rivals for the presidency whose characters frame Goodwin’s assessment of Lincoln’s political savvy are Lincoln, his eventual Secretary of State William Seward, some guy from MO who I wasn’t that into (not abolitionist or ambitious enough by half), and that man who knew his name was “too fishy” for glory. Painfully ambitious, with a more liberal abolitionist record and platform than Lincoln, he was self-conscious, hard-working and bound to lose this game to Seward or Lincoln because that’s what happens in such narratives. Anyway, the point is that although I may be one of if not the only reader to feel so, FISHY CHASE IS TOTALLY MY FAVE! As a matter of loyalry I must discover what Chiaverini does with this character who is so close to my favorite character in the Goodwin tale. 😉 History can offer all the pleasures of historical fiction when it’s styled like Goodwin’s bestselling character-driven studies.
Thanks for this, K
Thanks for visiting. I just added ‘Team of Rivals’ to my TBR. It sounds like a must read to me. I found Salmon P. Chase to be a very interesting character indeed. It makes me wonder it emancipation might have moved faster if he would have been president.
Teddy, I’m so pleased my comment served to introduce you to the book. I had some criticisms of it having to due with Goodwin’s chosen angle on certain issues, but it was fantastic historical narrative — absorbing then, comes to mind frequently now and many times in the years since. Cheers, Kara S
This is on my list now.
A Historical novel is not normally my reading genre. I think this one I would enjoy reading because of the two strong women being the main characters.
Pinned this one.