STORY SUMMARY
In 1894, in Minneapolis Minnesota, there was a financial crisis going on and spiritualism of all kinds was the rage. Women were dying of unknown circumstances as well and many people blamed it on "mesmerism" which was a pre-cursor to hypnotism.
Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers was a refuge for many women and was run by Abby Mendenhall, Euphemia Overlock, and Charlotte Van Cleve. The matron over the babies, children and young women was Mrs Rhoades. Abby was a Quaker married to a man named Junius. She often spent the night, though, at Bethany Home if a new girl arrived or if a birth was happening.
Abby, although a Quaker, was also a bit progressive and a life long supporter of progressive causes. She was also the treasurer for Bethany Home.
Stories of these murdered women were running rampant when Bethany Home had a new young woman show up. This new woman was young, pregnant, and appeared to have been beaten. Because so many of the women refused to give their real names (because many had been known as "sporting girls" aka prostitutes in the many brothels at that time in Minneapolis), Abby would often create a name for them. The women were also allowed to stay for one full year and were expected to do chores and learn a skill to take with them and hopefully they wouldn't return to the brothels. This new "inmate" as the unwed mothers were known as was given the name of Faith Johnson. She refuses to talk and appears to be a mute. In actuality, she was a selective mute. Faith's refusal to speak is now quickly assumed to be connected with "bad magic". Were the rumors true? Was she a Mesmerist??
Abby thinks the rumors around Faith are nonsense but she does recognize the appeal of gossip. She is unwilling to allow the home's important mission to be clouded by scandal, so she gives Faith's new roommate, May, the job of tracing Faith's path to Bethany Home.
May Lombard is very anxious to end her year at Bethany Home. She has plans to become engaged with a man named "Hal" even though she isn't sure she can really trust him. She has never revealed to Hal, whom she met at church, where she lives nor what her real name is.
As May begins to dig into Faith's past, beginning with the purple dress she arrived to Bethany Home in, she begins to see a side of Minneapolis she didn't know existed. Her investigation brings her very close to "polite society" and closer to Hal than she would have imagined. The more that May learns, however, the more she is forced to question the motives of everyone around her. This includes Abby and Faith. As more women turn up dead, May must reevaluate the future that she wants, ahd which lies she is willing to tell and for whom.
Where did Faith really come from?
And just who really is Hal Hayward?? Who is the real "mesmerist'??
MY THOUGHTS
This was such a fantastic historical fiction story.
Here are the actual facts regarding this book: the story is fiction but it is based on some true pieces of history regarding Minneapolis and Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers which really did exist and was really run by Abby, Euphemia, and Charlotte.
Harry Hayward (Hal in the book) really was a real person and is believed to be this nation's first confirmed serial killer. He supposedly boasted of killing 5 people other than the dressmaker Catherine Ging. I won't go into any more of that part as I don't want to ruin the plot for you.
May and Faith were fictional characters but based on research into the Home for Unwed Mothers. Abby really was a Quaker woman and the author took notes from the journals of Abby Mendenhall!
The characters and setting are so well developed. I could picture the Home and the streets...and the weather perfectly. It's a beautifully written story with excellent descriptions of each detail.
I loved learning about how these women ended up working in brothels. I had never realized it was that bad in the late 1800s in our nation. It was basically sex trafficking/sex slave trade! the author handles it well and nothing is explicit in this book. You are given the idea by the setting and description.
I loved the relationship between May and Faith and the friendship that developed. All of the girls described in the Bethany Home had a special place in my heart as I was reading this story.
Each chapter is a different voice: Abby, Faith, May
Main themes in this story are: poverty, classism; abandonment, unwed pregnancy, "everything is not always as it seems"; crime; murder; friendship; re-birth of self; overcoming hardship; trauma; love.
There was a quote that jumped out at me at the very end of the book:
"But she (May) had come to see good fortune not as a matter of what you earned through virtuous behavior, but of whom you loved and were loved by in return." (pg 304 The Mesmerist by Caroline Woods c. 2024).
I loved, too, that there is an epilogue at the end of the book that is set a year later and where we learn what happens to Faith, May and a couple of the other girls from the Home.
This was probably one of the very best historical fiction books I've read in awhile. I loved that it was a different type of story than most in this genre.
I also love that the author has good notes in the back of the book explaining which parts were fiction and which were actually in our American history.
I highly recommend this book!!
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some mature content).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.
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