The Winthrop Woman

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂

Rating: really liked it
I have given 3.5★ . Just can't quite push my rating up to 4.

While I loved Katherine which is supposed to be Seton's best work, I am starting to think that in most of her books, Seton lacks the ability to make me care about her characters. & Seton shares the heavy foreboding style of Jean Plaidy where you start to wonder if all these real life characters had the gift of second sight!

The most interesting parts of the story were Elizabeth's early life in England and right at the end with Elizabeth's third husband. There Elizabeth shows some normal human frailties & Seton having her in love with (view spoiler)[her cousin Jack? Is there any basis for this? I'm not finding anything online. Made me think - a lot-of Angelique & Forever Amber with ill fated first loves. (hide spoiler)]For a lot of the book Elizabeth was just too perfect for me where in real life she must have been a truly remarkable, flawed & strong willed woman who defied a lot of conventions. I think Seton tried to show this but wimped out. But a big plus for showing the unfairness to the native population, but then a big minus, for the way Seton shows secondary character Anneke's heavily accented English.

"Ve can do nothing..."

Just painful.

A lot of research went into this book. Unfortunately Seton wanted to use all of it.

Misfit

Rating: really liked it
What an incredible story of an amazing woman. Elizabeth Fones, married into the Winthrop family, the leader of that being John Winthrop who took his family to New England to govern the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Elizabeth was a rare woman indeed, going on to being one of the few women of her times to be a large landholder, married three times and finally finding great happiness and love in the last one to Will Hallet.

This book has it all -- passion, madness, bigotry, ignorant superstitions and religious persecution. The author beautifully weaves her story so that you feel you are there, from terrors of sailing the Atlantic, small pox, the sights, sounds and smells of the times, everything is perfectly melded to entertain and educate you about this period. I was also sorrowed at the eventual treatment of the Native Americans, from originally friendly terms, then to end so tragically. I found out much about a period in our nation's history that I only had the briefest of recollections from those long ago history lessons in school.

Anyone who enjoys historical fiction should put this one on their list. Highly recommended.

Chrissie

Rating: really liked it
Finally, I have chugged through Winthrop Woman. It is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Little House Collection, but for adults. I did like these books, but then I was a kid! Indians and witches and cute, super sweet romance, romance and more romance. The romance is so clean it whistles. Forget a spark of passion. Yes, the history is there, and it is all accurate, but it is too cute, too predictable, too romantic, and too moralistic. The writing is accurate, but not beautiful and not intriguing. Maybe to really love this book one has to have deep religious faith. I envy those who possess that.

I am not saying this book is bad. It just did not fit me.

Mela

Rating: really liked it
Update: Price-cut on Amazon today (Aug 23, 2021). You can also always borrow it on OpenLibrary.

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It is a masterpiece of the genre (a historical fiction). Anya Seton was a master. I am speechless. I couldn't sleep last night I just had to read it to the end. Even now, by noon, I am enchanted.
On the cover of my copy is written:

"Perhaps the greatest gifts Anya Seton brings to her historical novels are the zest of her narrative, the life she breathes into the most insignificant characters, and the atmosphere of the era she evokes around them."

I couldn't agree more.

Seton was a great storyteller and she made wide and deep historical research for her books. Furthermore, she seemed to know human nature and she definitely wasn't biased to different religions, different views, different thinking, and so on. Thus her stories are more truthful, more real because she wrote them as she would have lived in those times.

What could I add? I have been part of Elizabeth's life for the last week. She became to me a real person. And I think she will remain in my memory as my friend who lived and died. Although she lived long ago, in my heart she lived yesterday. I feel the same toward Katherine from the other novel of Seton.

I must add too, that this book could be a textbook. I have learned more about the history of the beginning of the USA, about the first colonists, about clashing between them and Indians, about Indians. Hard life, hard decisions, consequences of political changes. We are not so different from the people who lived four centuries ago. We have the same dreams and fears. And our life depends also not only on our decisions but also (often more than we would like) on the decisions of many other people. Reading this book I thought often how accidental our existences are and how full of influence by circumstance.

If you are fan of a good historical fiction you must try Seton's books. If you try with 'The Winthrop Woman' you will fall in love with Seton as a writer.

Carol Storm

Rating: really liked it
A sleazier, sexier, version of THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND.

Elizbeth is sexy. Elizabeth likes luxury, fancy clothes, and handsome men. Elizabeth is not a perfect fit for Puritan New England, but thanks to several lucky marriages and husbands who all seem to conveniently die at the right moment, she ends up a woman of substance . . . respected, admired, and tolerated in spite of her open defiance of sober Puritan customs.

Typical moment . . . the whole colony is fasting, going without food for a day to try to get the Almighty to help them stay humble. Elizabeth, who is on her second or third husband already and has a very hearty appetite, can't wait for the fast day to be over. She sneaks into the larder and grabs a nice big chicken leg . . . only to be caught red-handed by Governor Winthrop himself. Even though she wants to hide the chicken leg behind her back, she ends up confessing to her crime and making the governor laugh in spite of himself . . . and comes out better off than if she'd not been caught at all. It's that kind of book, Elizabeth breaks all the rules and men either indulge her or look the other way. And any man who challenges her usually ends up scalped or dead of plague!

A fun book, but Elizabeth isn't exactly the martyr type. She tries to be good, but she always gives in and gets what she really wants instead!

Laura

Rating: really liked it
This is the story of Elizabeth Fones with a historical background of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Elizabeth was a nice of John Winthrop and she marries Harry Winthrop, her first cousin.

When the Winthrop family decides to move the New World, they become founding members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston.

The population of this colony was governed by the Puritanism and John Winthrop is elected as the Governor of this colony.



According to Wiki , “the word "puritan" is often used to describe someone who adheres to strict moral or religious principles.” In this context, John Winthrop and the other main leaders of emigration to New England in 1629 were non-separating Puritans. In other words, they were “puritans who were not satisfied with the Reformation of the Church of England, but who remained within the Church of England advocating further reforms.”


Engraving showing Winthrop's arrival at Salem.

As soon as Elizabeth lands in Massachusetts, she learns that Henry had drowned in a boating accident - they travelled in different ships to America.

Elizabeth will marry twice until the end of the book. During her second marriage, she and her Indian servant Telaka are accused of being possessed by the devil. As consequence, Elizabeth’s family is banished from the colony and moved to Greenwich, which was governed by the Dutch law.

However, Elizabeth’s misfortunes doesn’t end there, on the contrary: by falling in love with her third husband, she is accused of adultery since “divorce” at that time was inadmissible within this Puritan society.

Some hints about the Pequot War is given during the narrative.

Since Anya Seton is one of the best historical fiction authors in my humble opinion. this book may be considered as another masterpiece written by this author.

Another unforgettable classic masterpiece about this subject is the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

4* Katherine
4* Green Darkness
5* Dragonwyck
5* Avalon
4* The Winthrop Woman
TR Devil Water

Judy

Rating: really liked it
The #8 top bestseller of 1958 was another door stopper but also an excellent piece of historical fiction. It made my list of Best Books Read in 2010. Elizabeth Fones, the woman of the title, was the niece of John Winthrop who became the first governor of Massachusetts in 1630. Elizabeth married her cousin Henry, one of John Winthrop's many sons, although she was really in love with John Jr. All of these characters actually existed and I saw that the plots of romance novels are truly drawn from real life.

The book follows Elizabeth's life from age seven in 1617 England to her third marriage in 1655. She was a strong willed, beautiful and sturdy woman. Strong willed women were not in demand in those Puritan times but sturdiness was a requirement for the first settlers in New England. Women were expected to exist in complete obedience and servitude to their husbands while having a new baby every year.

Anya Seton brings to life the harsh conditions, the Indian attacks and massacres, as well as the intense quarrels of various Puritan ministers and polticians. Though we now have material comfort, birth control and women's rights, the ridiculous power struggles of life and the slander of persons by rumor are unchanged. Whenever I start feeling too freaked out about the world going to hell, I read history and see that not much has changed in human relations, yet somehow we manage to muddle through.

Another key female character in The Winthrop Woman is Anne Hutchinson, who managed to have fifteen children while she wrote and spoke about true religious freedom. The Puritan ministers and leaders felt threatened by her views about faith and one's personal relation with God, envisioning their control over women slipping away. She was eventually banished to the wilderness and finally slaughtered by Indians.

Besides being a fine adventurous love story, The Winthrop Woman showed me how the Puritan beliefs and values set the tone for early American civilization and how these factors were the roots of many of our current views of life. I highly recommend it, especially for women. Because we may have come a long way, baby, but we are not there yet.

A couple days ago I read The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry, which takes place in contemporary Salem, MA, has witches and women who can "see" more than meets the eye, women who are harmed by men and women who save women from harm. I will review it soon, but it made me remember The Winthrop Woman.

Debbie Zapata

Rating: really liked it
My mother recommended this book to me so I confess I was reluctant from the beginning since our reading tastes seldom match. But I quickly became caught up in Elizabeth's story and the way it was told. As much as the book is about one woman's life, it is also about the beginnings of a country's life. I learned details about the Puritans that were never mentioned in my school history classes so many years ago. They left England in search of religious freedom was pretty much all I remember: turns out the Puritans were just as intolerant and judgmental as the people they ran away from, and Elizabeth paid dearly for being an intelligent woman who dared to think for herself and tried to follow her own higher standards. I doubt if I would have had her endurance during her many years of disappointments and difficulties.

Overall the book left me sadly wondering: How did America manage to get past all of that Puritanical blindness....or did the country ever really leave it behind? Is it still there under a thin veneer of supposed tolerance, waiting its chance to take charge again? I hope not, for the sake of all of Elizabeth's descendants and kindred spirits living today.

Donna

Rating: really liked it
I loved this book. I did the audio and the narrator did an amazing job. The different accents were nicely done. The audio was long....27 hours, but not once did I do the page math. This rolled along at an even pace. I was pulled in from the beginning.

This book covers the life of a woman, Elizabeth (Bess) Winthrop. She was a Puritan and left England with her family to strike out a new beginning in the Colonies of America in the 1600's. The historical fiction was nicely done. The research was woven into the story where it didn't feel like info overload. The characters were also well drawn. Well done.

Elizabeth (Alaska)

Rating: really liked it
I enjoyed this so much more than Katherine which I did not especially care for. For many readers, my enjoyment may be exactly opposite of theirs. Elizabeth was a much more accessible character to me. I could empathize with her. Strong-willed in a time when women were only expected to be obedient, she was often in opposition to the men in power. All of the characters in this were real people.

It is also set in a time period with which I am somewhat familiar. It isn't just the history I was taught in school decades ago, but that I have became more familiar with it also researching my own family history. I am not related in any way to the Winthrop family and my family resided in other parts of New England. I think the Pilgrims of the Winthrop fleet did not imagine the raging wilderness they set out to tame. I live just a short distance from true wilderness. I cannot imagine spending more than 10 weeks crossing 3000 miles of ocean, hungry and showing the first signs of scurvy, only to find no shelter and no food with which I was familiar. I am definitely too soft, but many of these people were simply not ready for the hardships in front of them.

Seton seemed occasionally to wander away from her story. But the path to true love is sometimes a crooked one, and this story was more than just the title character. Eventually, I came to appreciate that I was being given more than just a love story, though a very good one. I became wholly invested in these characters and for that reason I'm reaching across the 4/5-star line, but I think most would settle on the lower number.

Bree (AnotherLookBook)

Rating: really liked it
Years ago I read Seton's Dragonwyck and although I don't remember details of that story, I do remember how much I loved it. I've been meaning to read another Seton novel for years, and on a whim I decided on The Winthrop Woman.

Heavily historical, The Winthrop Woman is inspired by the lives of the early settlers in Greeenwich, CT, where the author herself lived. I'm sure that Seton took some historical liberties, as all writers of historical fiction do, but overwhelmingly this novel felt like reading actual history. For me, that wasn't a turn off; it just helped explain things like why a husband we didn't like needed to stick around for so long (hint: because in real life he did stick around that long!). Although the main character is a woman, there is actually a good amount of biographical information about her life because she was from such prominent Massachusetts Bay Colony family.

I'd say what will stick with me longest was the atmosphere Seton created. It made me feel even more like a witness to history. Another fun takeaway: By sheer coincidence, I put two and two together and discovered that one of my direct ancestors is a minor character in this book. So I unintentionally got to know my 9th great grandfather!

Caz

Rating: really liked it
I've given this an A for narration and B+ for content at AudioGals.

Originally published in 1958, The Winthrop Woman is a richly detailed piece of biographical fiction based on the life of Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett, niece of John Winthrop, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and its first Governor.

The book opens at Christmas 1618 when Elizabeth is just seven years old and she is travelling with her family to visit her well-to-do relatives, the Winthrops, at Groton in Suffolk. (Incidentally, most of the locations featured in the first part of the book are near where I live, which adds an extra layer of interest!)

You can read the rest of this review at AudioGals.

Susan

Rating: really liked it
I've learned so much from this book....I knew the basics about the settlers who left their English roots behind to make a new life for themselves in America, but really, I had no idea of what life was like for these people, both on the long, often perilous sea voyages, or in the new settlements they lived in once they arrived in the new world.
I found this book totally fascinating....I liked how it began in England giving such a good background to those who were to travel to a new life, the descriptions of the voyage seemed so realistic, and the many trials, triumphs and tribulations of Elizabeth and her contemporaries gave a believable insight into the life they encountered their new home.
The author obviously put a huge amount of research into her preparations for writing this book....having real people to write about obviously helps enormously, but she certainly made me care about these brave and tenacious individuals.....or in some cases dislike them, and I now want to know much more about this period in history.

Mandy Moody

Rating: really liked it
What a wonderful book! So well written and so engaging, I loved it.
I don't know why books like these aren't assigned to High Schoolers. It brought early American history alive in a way that textbooks never did for me. Seton's research is impeccable, and this book was more fact than fiction - but was interesting!
The main character, Elizabeth Fones, is one that I think almost any woman would be able to identify with. Although her thoughts and feelings are ahead of her time, her struggle between what she feels, what others expect of her, and what she expects of herself is timeless.
Throughout her life she fights who she might be against who she should be, eventually coming to peace with who she is.
I loved this book.

Natasa

Rating: really liked it
This is a long historical novel of the groups of early settlers coming over from England to New England. It not only paints a picture of the religious and political upheaval of the mid to late 1600s. The author portrays a fictionalized version of Elizabeth Fones, a real historical figure, from her childhood in London to her death in Newtown, Queens County New York. The history comes alive in the telling of her story. It never fails to entertain.