Gilded

Catherine Karp

Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)

Well-bred ladies drawn to a promiscuous shopkeeper. A popular mayor who terrorizes his young second wife. In 1897, Hollybrook, Massachusetts, maintains its Victorian respectability, despite such unspeakable secrets. Until the mayor's wife decides to seek love and liberation outside her marriage.

In 1897, the growing women's rights movement marches valiantly toward the 20th century. But for Emma Brandenberg, the well-educated, much-younger wife of a popular Massachusetts mayor, equality seems a far cry from her stifling, often-violent marriage. During her darkest moments, she meets Freddie Ash, a nomadic ladies' hat maker known for his own contributions toward female liberation--specifically, sexual liberation. With the brazen and beguiling hat maker’s help, Emma soon embarks upon an unforgettable journey toward love, independence, and fulfilment that will transform the lives of all around her...

Review by Denise M. Clark (180303) Rating (9/10)

Review by Denise M. Clark
Rating 9/10
This turn-of-the-century novel is a combination romance/suspense, but not in the terms many have come to expect. It’s the tale of one woman’s struggle against a male-dominated society, spousal abuse, and the growing movement for women’s rights.

Emma Brandenberg is married to a much older man, Philip, mayor of their town of Hollybrook, Massachusetts in 1897. She’s desperately unhappy with her marriage, but is at a loss what she can do about it... until the arrival of a woman’s hat maker named Freddy Ash. It is his arrival in town and the opening of Ash’s Fine Parisian Millinery that sets the town on its ear and shows not only Emily but the other women in town, that times are changing and the men folk better just get used to it.

Ms. Karp has written an exquisitely plotted tale of female angst with her portrayal of Victorian expectations and morals, and sometimes-backward logic. In Emma, Ms. Karp has put her finger on the pulse of every woman’s desire since the beginning of time to be cherished and respected. Her characterizations jump off the page and become real, three-dimensional friends who dwell in the mind for days after the last page is turned and illustrates that women have indeed come a long way.
Denise M. Clark (18th March 2003)