Publisher's Weekly
This thoroughly entertaining, sprawling saga begins at Plymouth Rock with the landing of Mayflower passenger Bartholomew Revell, who rises from apprentice to rich merchant and ship owner, and follows his descendants as they profit from trade in molasses and slaves and found a dynasty that will be Boston aristocracy. The men may fight the wars and make the fortunes, but it is the Revell women who form the heart of the book and whose portraits are most vividly drawn: indomitable Catherine, who survives as an Indian captive; Rebecca, sacrificed on the gallows to the hysteria of the witch hunts; and Abigail, who must bear the indignity of British soldiers quartered in her home while her husband and the other brave colonists fight at Lexington. So they parade through the pages, abolitionists and environmentalists, lovers and mothers, facing everything from the influx of upstart Irish to fallout from the Sacco and Vanzetti case, playing their largely unheralded roles in a nation's maturation. Using well-researched background material that takes Bay State history through the 1960s, Zaroulis ( The Last Waltz ) weaves a fictional tapestry rich with details of real and imaginary characters.
Library Journal
Adding an interesting dash of feminism to the Michener formula, Zaroulis tries to do for the historic Bay State what Michener did for Hawaii, Texas, and other places. She tells the story of a single family, the Revells, and through them the history of Massachusetts from the arrival of the Mayflower to the present. A Revell or a relative is present at the first Thanksgiving, the Salem witch trials, and the Boston tea party. Revells are shown helping to start the China trade, founding the American factory system and the Boston Symphony, agitating for abolitionism, women's suffrage, or to save Sacco and Vanzetti. With its impressive array of Massachusetts lore this can be read as a sugar-coated history lesson, sure to please those who read Michener. Its flaws are typical of this genre: long spaces of uninspired prose and too many characters and events that exist simply to sketchily personify a historical trend. But faults aside, this has the potential to be a best seller, and not just in Massachusetts.-- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Genre: Historical
This thoroughly entertaining, sprawling saga begins at Plymouth Rock with the landing of Mayflower passenger Bartholomew Revell, who rises from apprentice to rich merchant and ship owner, and follows his descendants as they profit from trade in molasses and slaves and found a dynasty that will be Boston aristocracy. The men may fight the wars and make the fortunes, but it is the Revell women who form the heart of the book and whose portraits are most vividly drawn: indomitable Catherine, who survives as an Indian captive; Rebecca, sacrificed on the gallows to the hysteria of the witch hunts; and Abigail, who must bear the indignity of British soldiers quartered in her home while her husband and the other brave colonists fight at Lexington. So they parade through the pages, abolitionists and environmentalists, lovers and mothers, facing everything from the influx of upstart Irish to fallout from the Sacco and Vanzetti case, playing their largely unheralded roles in a nation's maturation. Using well-researched background material that takes Bay State history through the 1960s, Zaroulis ( The Last Waltz ) weaves a fictional tapestry rich with details of real and imaginary characters.
Library Journal
Adding an interesting dash of feminism to the Michener formula, Zaroulis tries to do for the historic Bay State what Michener did for Hawaii, Texas, and other places. She tells the story of a single family, the Revells, and through them the history of Massachusetts from the arrival of the Mayflower to the present. A Revell or a relative is present at the first Thanksgiving, the Salem witch trials, and the Boston tea party. Revells are shown helping to start the China trade, founding the American factory system and the Boston Symphony, agitating for abolitionism, women's suffrage, or to save Sacco and Vanzetti. With its impressive array of Massachusetts lore this can be read as a sugar-coated history lesson, sure to please those who read Michener. Its flaws are typical of this genre: long spaces of uninspired prose and too many characters and events that exist simply to sketchily personify a historical trend. But faults aside, this has the potential to be a best seller, and not just in Massachusetts.-- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Genre: Historical
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