We are absolutely thrilled to bring you the Release Week Blitz for Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie’s AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER, a historical fiction novel is published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, and releasing March 1, 2016! AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER is a compelling, richly researched novel by bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. Drawing from thousands of letters and original sources, the authors reveal the fascinating, untold story of Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter. Patsy was one of the most influential women in American history: not only the progeny of a founding father – and the woman who held his secrets close to her heart – but a key player in the shaping of our nation’s legacy. And her story is one seldom told, until now. Make sure you grab your copy today!
About AMERICA’S FIRST DAUGHTER:
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes American minister to France.
It is in Paris, at the glittering court and among the first tumultuous days of revolution, that fifteen-year-old Patsy learns about her father’s troubling liaison with Sally Hemings, a slave girl her own age. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love—with her father’s protégé William Short, a staunch abolitionist and ambitious diplomat. Torn between love, principles, and the bonds of family, Patsy questions whether she can choose a life as William’s wife and still be a devoted daughter.
Her choice will follow her in the years to come, to Virginia farmland, Monticello, and even the White House. And as scandal, tragedy, and poverty threaten her family, Patsy must decide how much she will sacrifice to protect her father's reputation, in the process defining not just his political legacy, but that of the nation he founded.
My Thoughts:
Historical fiction isn't something I normally gravitate to, yet when I heard who was co-writing America's First Daughter I was willing to give it a chance. After all I do like Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie (aka Laura Kaye) writing, and I felt I wouldn't be disappointed.
US history (or any history) isn't my strong suit. I mean it's not a subject I would gravitate to, but America's First Daughter is a fictional story based on Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph. Truth be told I haven't learn all that much about any US presidents, but this was an eye opening experience. Sure some of the story is fiction, but there are facts along with it. Yes, there are some parts that might be more romanticize, which is fine, because we aren't for certain what went on in Patsy's mind. She can't say, "Hey that's not what happen." Anyway.
I must say that it's beautifully written and engaging. The story actually wanted me to look more into history behind what was writing. I did like how the story was broken up to three different parts of Patsy's life. The first part focuses on her early childhood (about 8) to being on the cusp of being a woman. We watch her grow and watch over her father after her mother's death. There are some things she didn't approve of her father doing and it went against her moral fiber. Especially, when she discover the relationship between her father and Sally. I could understand why she wouldn't like Sally after fact, I mean it's pretty scandalous, but it was more the dishonor of her mother's memory. I get her sullen attitude, because I experience the same feelings in my family (that would be for another time).
She grows and matures, and finds stability in her husband Tom Randolph. She definitely had her struggles in her marriage, which she had to tolerate cause technically she was her husband's property. Yet, she tried her best. The last part is the later years of her father's life and she still had marital issues. Towards the end it does get bit romanticize, because we all want a happy ending for Patsy for her part in history. Looking back in the story she plays a huge part, but it's not something we truly look into, unless your a history buff.
America's First Daughter is beautiful rendition of facts and fiction. Most of the things that happen in the story, but some might have or not. However, it's something to look more into if you want to grasp more knowledge of Patsy. Or if you want to just read a story that takes you on a journey through eyes of a daughter of one America's Founding Fathers and her trials, America's First Daughter is a great story to travel through.
Copy provided by William Morrow via Edelweiss
Excerpt:
It was my haste that made me stumble halfway down the stairs. Only a wild, wrenching grasp at the carved wooden rail saved me from a broken neck. Alas, the heavy fall of my feet echoed up the staircase and drew my father from his rooms.
“Patsy?” he called, peering over the bannister.
I froze, breathless, my belly roiling with shock and anger and revulsion. I ought to have pretended that I didn’t hear him say my name. I ought to have hurried on, leaving him with only the sight of my back. I ought never to have looked up at him over my shoulder.
But I did look up.
There on the landing my father loomed tall, a tendril of his ginger hair having come loose from its ribbon, his shirt worn without its neck cloth, the stark white linen setting off more vividly the red flush that crept up his throat. Was it shame for his behavior with Sally or . . . ardor?
On the heels of giving witness to his behavior, the thought was so excruciatingly horrifying that heat swept over me, leaving me to wish I’d burn away to dust.
“Are you hurt?” Papa asked, hoarsely.
I couldn’t reply, my mouth too filled with the bitter taste of bile. Finally, I forced a shake of my head.
He glanced back to the door, then back at me, his hand half-covering his mouth. “Were—were you at my door just now?”
“No,” I whispered, as much as I could manage under my suffocating breathlessness. And how dare he ask if I’d been at his door when neither of us could bear the honest answer? Even if Papa didn’t know what I’d seen, he knew what he’d done.
He ought to have been downstairs with us, reacquainting himself with the little daughter who still didn’t remember him. He ought to have been sipping cider with the young man who fancied me, giving his permission to court. He ought to have been doing a hundred other things. Instead, he was preying upon my dead mother’s enslaved half-sister—and the wrongness of it filled my voice with a defiant rage.
“No, I wasn’t at your door.” I held his gaze, letting him see what he would.
My father paused on the precipice, clearing his throat, absently smearing the corner of his lips with one thumb. “Well—well. . .did you need something?” As if my needs were at the forefront of his thoughts.
My fingers curled into fists as a lie came to me suddenly, and sullenly. “I was coming up to fetch my prayer book.” Surely he knew it was a lie, but I didn’t care. If he challenged me, I’d lie again, without even the decency of dropping my eyes. I’d lie because between a father and a daughter, what I’d witnessed was unspeakable. And I’d learned from the man who responded with silence to my letters about politics or adultery or the liberation of slaves. . . .
Papa never spoke on any subject he didn’t want to.
Neither would I.
“Are you certain you weren’t hurt,” Papa finally murmured, “ . . . on the stairs?”
Rage burned inside me so hotly I thought it possible that my handprint might be seared upon the railing. I bobbed my head, grasped my skirt, and took two steps down before my father called to me again.
“Patsy?”
I couldn’t face him, so I merely stopped, my chest heaving with the effort to restrain myself from taking flight. “What?”
A heavy silence descended. One filled with pregnant emotion. I feared he might be so unwise as to attempt to explain himself, to justify or confess his villainous lapse in judgment, but when he finally spoke, it was only to ask, “What of your prayer book?”
Swallowing hard, I forced words out despite the pain. “I’ve reconsidered my need of it. I’m not as apt as some people to forget what it says.”
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Advanced Praise for America’s First Daughter:
“America’s First Daughter brings a turbulent era to vivid life. All the conflicts and complexities of the Early Republic are mirrored in Patsy’s story. It’s breathlessly exciting and heartbreaking by turns-a personal and political page-turner.” (Donna Thorland, author of The Turncoat)
“Painstakingly researched, beautifully hewn, compulsively readable -- this enlightening literary journey takes us from Monticello to revolutionary Paris to the Jefferson White House, revealing remarkable historical details, dark family secrets, and bringing to life the colorful cast of characters who conceived of our new nation. A must read.” (Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Empress)
“Painstakingly researched, beautifully hewn, compulsively readable -- this enlightening literary journey takes us from Monticello to revolutionary Paris to the Jefferson White House, revealing remarkable historical details, dark family secrets, and bringing to life the colorful cast of characters who conceived of our new nation. A must read.” (Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Empress)
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