Washington's Lady by Nancy Moser

Genre: Christian Fiction: Historical

Book Summary: If you paid attention in U.S. History classes, or know anything about the life of the first president of the United States of America, then you probably already have an idea of what the plot of this book is like. In first-person narrative, it follows the life of Martha Custis Parke Washington, and, if what the author claims is true about her research, sticks to historical fact pretty closely. Martha married young, her husband died after seven years of marriage, and then, with two young children in tow, Martha meets and marries an up-and-coming military colonel, George Washington. Through life’s ups and downs, and a nation that is quickly and violently changing, Martha learns to trust God with the unexpected, whether good or bad.

Indulgent Book Talk: I know it is far too often said that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but I will admit, the pretty colonial-period dress on the front of this paperback immediately drew my attention. Aside from that, I found the book to be an enjoyable, if unremarkable, read. With family on the east coast, I’ve been to many of the places mentioned in the book, including Mount Vernon, George Washington’s plantation, so it was fun to have a real-life picture in my head of the novel’s settings. I loved reading this for its refresher on American History, and was glad that I still remembered the facts about our nation’s beginnings from my AP U.S. History class 9 years ago. 

This book is well-written, though not groundbreaking in its style. While the plot moved along nicely and held my interest, the author falls into a habitual “Martha” voice that starts to get a little old after awhile. Ending each section or chapter on a one-worded train-of-thought was interesting the first ten times but started to annoy me as the book progressed. I also got the feeling as I kept reading that even the author was tiring of her book; towards the end, it started to read more like at textbook, and the family-life and Martha’s internal struggles that made the story more three-dimensional and dynamic got lost in the dry historical narrative.

Nevertheless, I did like how the author flushed out the characters’ faith and how that informed (or, to their harm, didn’t inform) their decisions.

Glorifying Elements:  As a novel published by a Christian company and written by a Christian author, there is much good to be said about the book. Moser flushes out several things that I think are key and sadly missing from our culture. This is what struck me the most:

1.       The faith of the forefathers: Granted, many of these people were not Christians in the Biblical sense of the word. Nevertheless, they seemed to work towards a common goal of instilling Judeo-Christian principles of equality and human value and dignity into the infant nation. We have much to be grateful for, especially as Christians. Without our forefathers’ commitment to Christ, we would not enjoy the freedoms we do.

2.       Trusting God: One of the big ways that Martha grows as a character is her ability to trust God, even with the worst that life can bring her. She begins the novel as a person who is angry at God for taking away her first husband, some of her children, and other relatives. She vows to keep her loved ones close so that they will not die on her. But as the novel progresses and tragedy inevitably strikes again, she learns that she must trust God to be good even when life is painful and difficult. She’s never perfect, but she comes to surrender her life and the lives of her loved ones to God.

3.       Good parenting: This is sort of a weird one, maybe, but this was a first time in a book where I saw a character admit that the way a child turned out was the fault of the parent. Martha (and this is historically true as well, apparently), was never good at disciplining her children, so her son turned out to be rather wild and immature. Later in the book, she expresses regret over her decisions as a parent. As a hopeful future parent, it was a good lesson for me in raising children the right way. 

Worldly Elements:  Because this is a Christian book, there is very little objectionable material. Sex is talked about, but only as it pertains to a husband and a wife, and in very eighteenth century ways (so subtle and polite). It never struck me as dirty or inappropriate. There is no bad language to speak of, no violence. With any Christian fiction, one has to be careful to not read the book as theology, and to always line up the character’s actions and inner dialogue with Scripture. But there was nothing in this book that struck me as Biblically incorrect, at least not in a way that concerned me. 

General Recommendation: Yes! If you’re into historical fiction, this one was a nice read. As I said before, I lost interest towards the end because it started to read more like a history textbook and less like an interesting individual narrative, but I still enjoyed it.