BOOK REVIEW: The Bride's House

Each book by Sandra Dallas builds my respect for the women who came before us. Her historical novels feature strong women facing life’s challenges, challenges that have not changed over the years. These tests could include everything from crossing the country by handcart to raising a family during a depression. THE BRIDE'S HOUSE introduces us to three generations of such women.

Nellie Bent is seventeen years old, dirt poor and one of the few single females in the mountain town of Georgetown. The year is 1880 and the town is just starting to see the mining boom. As she watches the ornate house that she has named “the Bride’s House” being built, she dreams of living there with the man she loves. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she does end up in the house, but married to someone else.

Nellie’s daughter Pearl grows up in the Bride’s House but under the strict rule of her father. There are times that she feels that she is a slave working in a mausoleum dedicated to her dead mother. Not allowed to go to college, Pearl learns the mining business by being her father’s right hand man. All the young men who have shown an interest in Pearl have been turned away by her dictatorial father, including the man she loves.

Pearl’s daughter Susan is the last of the strong women of the family. The time is now the early 1950’s and women have the freedom to go to college, to become more independent. It is Susan’s search for her self identity that starts to reveal the secrets of her women ancestors.

THE BRIDE'S HOUSE could have been another soap-opera type of women’s novel, but this was written by Sandra Dallas. In her hands we meet warm, sympathetic, living, breathing, people. People who are not always perfect, but will catch your interest.

Dallas is one of my favorite authors. She is an excellent storyteller. Her novels may be set in our past, but her stories and characters are universal. Her style of writing is crisp with language that never is condescending to her reader. I like that the secrets revealed at the end of her books add to the multidimension of her characters and give a twist to what the reader believed of them.

I am glad that she is also very prolific because I still have some of her works to look forward to.