After a heavy load of non-fiction, I needed some lighter reading this week. Renée Rosen's What the Lady Wants has been on my Nook for ages, and now seemed a good time to dig in.
What the Lady Wants is the story of the 30-plus year affair of Marshall Field and his mistress, Delia Spencer Caton, aka Mrs. Arthur Caton. As Rosen explains in her author's note at the end of the book. Marsh and Dell, as they were known to their intimates, were very real people who engaged in a very real affair; Rosen relied on a few historical records and her own rich imagination to create the rest of the pieces - the most important of which, in my opinion, is Paxton Lowry.
Without giving the story away, I will say that I felt Rosen created highly plausible motives for both Marsh and Dell. What the Lady Wants was not the best fiction I read this year (more on what was in my year end post later this week), but it is a strong story and a pleasurable read. Rosen gets bonus points for giving the city of Chicago a starring role, right alongside the men and women who built it.
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