Book Review: Sixteen Brides by Stephanie Grace Whitson

"WANTED, it said in large letters. ONLY WOMEN NEED APPLY. Smaller print said that Mr. Hamilton Drake of Dawson County, Nebraska, the organizer of the Ladies Emigration Society, was here in St. Louis to help women TAKE CONTROL of their own DESTINY by acquiring LAND IN THEIR OWN NAME. He invited ALL INTERESTED LADIES to meet with him in Parlor A of the Laclede Hotel on any one of three evenings listed. He promised that if women would HURRY, the could still acquire FREE PRIME HOMESTEADS in the most desirable portions of the country." Sixteen Brides, pg 13.

Sixteen Women board a train in St. Louis with the promise of free land echoing in their ears. All is not as it appears, and when a few of the women realize that Dr. Drake is more interested in delivering them as brides instead of land owners, they refuse to continue on their journey. Making an unlikely family, these women group together to pursue the dream that brought them to the desolate prairie.

Sixteen Brides is a story of courage, strength, forgiveness, redemption and love. Stephanie Whitson ties together the lives of five women who face the challenges of the prairie in Plum Grove, Nebraska. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this delightful twist on the historic Civil War widow story. I would recommend this to other lovers of civil war era historical fiction.

(I received a complimentary copy of this book for the purpose of review.)