The Lives of Diamond Bessie
A Novel
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Diamonds aren’t always a girl’s best friend.
Pregnant out of wedlock, sixteen-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, Annie resorts to prostitution in order to survive.
As a highly sought-after demi-mondaine, Annie—now Bessie—garners many expensive gifts from her admirers, and eventually meets and marries the son of a wealthy jeweler. With her marriage, she believes her dream of returning to proper society has finally come true. She’s proven wrong when she suffers the ultimate betrayal at the hands of the man she thought would be her salvation. But Bessie doesn’t let her story end there.
Inspired by a true story and set amid the burgeoning women’s rights movement, The Lives of Diamond Bessie is a haunting tale of betrayal and redemption that explores whether seeking revenge is worth the price you might pay.
“Drawing on a true story, Hadlock uses authentic period detail and well-drawn characters to pull readers into Annie/Bessie’s precarious journey toward redemption, which comes to an unexpected ending. This affecting tale of a 19th-century American woman struggling to prove her worth other than as a marriage prospect leaves a lasting impression.”
—Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1866, 16-year-old Annie Moore, the narrator of Hadlock's arresting debut, falls in love and gets pregnant in Canton, N.Y. To spare her family shame, she is sent to a convent in Buffalo. She accepts her fate, believing it temporary, but after the nuns spirit her baby daughter away, she is inconsolable. Determined to earn a living and get her daughter back, Annie runs away from the convent and ends up in a "joy house" (aka brothel) in Watertown, where she finds support along with, surprisingly, strength and dignity in her new role as sought-after demi-mondaine Bessie. Then she falls in love with a jeweler's son, Abe Rothschild, and they get married. She hopes to gain respectability, but those hopes are dashed when Abe turns out to have a violent streak. Drawing on a true story, Hadlock uses authentic period detail and well-drawn characters to pull readers into Annie/Bessie's precarious journey toward redemption, which comes to an unexpected ending. This affecting tale of a 19th-century American woman struggling to prove her worth other than as a marriage prospect leaves a lasting impression.