Bellewether (Kearsley)

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley (2018)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

The was a book group book. Yes, I've somehow become part of a book group.

The spelling of "Bellewether" is a pun on the French "belle", and it is the name of a ship and an estate in the book.

There are dual storylines taking place during the Seven Years (French & Indian) War and current day at a home above Snug Cove on the northern shore of Long Island, which is becoming a museum dedicated to the the life of a Revolutionary War hero. The hero will become Captain Benjamin Wilde, but he is still just one of the brothers of Lydia Wilde in the earlier narrative. There is also the story that a ghost haunts the museum and the woods about it, and the tale that it is a French soldier, killed by the one of the Wilde sons, when he attempted to run off with Lydia Wilde.

Charley is a descendant of the Wilde family, whose family fled to Canada during the Viet Nam War, but has come back to Long Island to look after her niece when her brother dies. She becomes the curator of the museum, much to the chagrin of a couple of board members, but she has the credentials for the job. She encounters the ghost early on and also starts to learn more of the history of the Wilde family as she goes to retrive items that were in the house according to an Inventory List made during British occupation (during the American Revolution). She also tries to find inormation behind the ghost story, which would allow them to expand the mandate of the museum. Some information is not welcome to be found. In particular, no one wanted to discover that the Captain was raised in a house with slaves. (Note that I don't think the current-day historians uncovered the entire story.)

The pre-Revolutionary story was of more interest to me. I can't say that I've read much of the Seven Years War era. Usually, it's from the 1770s onward. As for the modern-day story, most of my interest lay in uncovering the stories of the past. The ghost, which you can be certain early on is in fact a ghost even if you don't know whose, doesn't add much to the story, except as an aid to steering Charley in the right direction at times. The love stories/triangles are for anotehr demographic than me but didn't affect my enjoyment of the book either way.

Kearsley adds some historical notes at the end of the book which are of some interest, which events actually happened with real people, and how her characters and composites fit in.

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