A surprising near-miss from a well-loved author, THE ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS suffers from an unlikeable protagonist and a drawn-out introduction that deprives the reader of the heart of the story. Ada Byron King, may have written the first computer program, 100 years before a computer existed, captivated by an idea shared by Charles Babbage for a device that would be powered by steam. She was also the only child of Lord Byron, the well-known poet whose capricious life with short-lived marriage was scandalous. The book is more involved with her father, who she never meets, than with her science, advertised in the title. I admit, the title appealed to me greatly, so I was disappointed. This tale is more involved with British manners and society than women and science. Jennifer Chiaverini is a good writer and her books are wonderfully engaging and delightful. I look forward to the next; this one is a rare misfire for me. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

The concept of this book was great! i enjoyed reading about Lord Byron's only legitimate child, Ada was a true marvel. It did start out slow for me but I enjoyed getting a better understanding of the dynamic of the times and of Lord Byron's "madness"

Jennifer Chiaverini is known in the historical fiction world. For me she has written some really great books that have a foot in historical fact, but have a bit of fiction added to make it a good story!

This one had a bumpy start for me. With the prologue being quite lengthy and concerning how Lord and Lady Byron met and "fell in love" and how Ada was conceived, I from the start HATED Lord Byron and was nervous that I would not enjoy this one. As soon as Ada is given the reigns of the story and narrates her own childhood I was ready for a good book.

Somewhere in the middle of the book, this one took a dip for me and just dragged along. I felt like once Ada took the reigns we were going a good 50 mph and then somewhere in the middle it hit a speed bump and went slow and slower and I couldn't get my attention to keep on it. As soon as Ada met Mr. Baggage it got better, but it never picked up and really worked for me.

This lackluster read wouldn't keep me from reading more by Jennifer Chiaverini, but I have to say I like her American history books more than this one abroad.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
After reading this book i feel really motivated to dig some more into Ada Lovelace’s life and I need a biography about her. (so, +10 points for this book)

This is the story of Ada Lovelace, from the romance between her mother and her father Lord Byron, their marriage and estrangement. We see Ada growing up and her journey to become the ‘Enchantress of Numbers’ and to achieve incredible contribution to mathematics and to become one of the most remarkable woman of science.

The story was interesting but i really missed a connection with the writing style. It lacks of something, the narrative couldn’t completely enrapture me and at the same time the whole book felt a bit ‘dragged-on’ or overlong. Even Ada’s character wasn’t very interesting and it was really hard to feel any sort of empathy. That said, it wasn’t the perfect match for me but certainly interesting!

Jennifer Chiaverini's novel starts with the whirlwind relationship between Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke: giving us glimpses of Byron's mercurial temperament, his infamous relationship with Anne's cousin Lord Melbourne's wife Lady Caroline, and all the warning signs that theirs would not be a happy marriage. No one can blame Anne when she leaves Byron and works to keep their infant daughter from ever coming under his influence. Except for this early prologue the novel is told from Ada's point of view- meaning that many of the questions we have (especially about her mother!) are never fully answered, but only guessed at by Ada herself. Ada's oppressively strict upbringing by what we would consider today an emotionally abusive mother, is heartbreaking- perhaps more powerful because while Ada herself knows no alternative, Chiaverini knows her modern audience will see its loneliness and rigidity for the controlling efforts they are. The reader can't help but be amazed that Ada turns out as gentle and compassionate as she does. We also see what Ada only realizes later- that science and imagination are inseparable if one is to be able to claim true genius and create the exciting new technological future celebrated in the Great Exhibition at the end of the book.

Ada's friendship with Charles Babbage and her championing of his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine are clearly the high point of Ada's life (and therefore the book) and create more drama and interest than one might imagine. Her continually difficult relationship with her mother and the constant shadow of her father and his secrets are written in ways that ensure they are always present and natural without being too overbearing or heavily written. What I found most frustrating about the book- although probably very true to life- was that Ada's own accomplishments don't come across to the reader as the revolutionary work they are argued by historians to be. Ada always describes her work as her 'studies', as if she is never more than a modest amateur student. The concepts that she describes are a foreign language to a non-mathematician like me and so I was not able to fully appreciate or understand how her ideas might revolutionize Babbage's engines or even how they later come to be considered the beginning of computer programming. Ada understood Babbage's computers in ways even Babbage did not and spent most of her adult life working to explain to a largely indifferent public both what the engines did and, more importantly, what they could do. But when the scientific world learns it was a woman who wrote these explanations, the revolutionary work is considered not nearly as important as it might have been. After all, if a woman thinks it is important, it can't possibly be.

A well-written and interesting book, Enchantress of Numbers leaves the modern reader frustrated that Ada lived in a time and society that felt women's intelligence was naturally inferior to men's, that study might actually be physically harmful to women, and that Ada fights her entire life without receiving the scientific acknowledgement or the unconditional familial love that she so clearly deserved. You are also left in awe and admiration for a woman who quietly fought her entire life for the right to discover her passion and the joy she received from it, despite being surrounded by naysayers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for a digital galley of this novel.

I thoroughly enjoy learning about historical figures through fictionalized versions of their lives which contain the facts I want alongside the fictional additions which keep the narrative flowing. I particularly liked reading the second half of this book when the story of Ada Byron had finally moved on from her first nineteen years of life to her becoming Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace. I find it difficult to look kindly on a narrator who describes situations she remembers from when she was six months old. Yes, Ada was an interesting woman but having her remember her thoughts of comparing the sumptuousness of her home to the cathedral her mother was touring when Ada was less than a year old went just a little too far. The first nineteen years of Ada's life seems to have been an exercise in surviving the manipulation her mother engaged in to make sure there was no chance for the "bad Byron blood" Ada inherited from her father, Lord Byron, to once again taint the lives he touched. Ada was not to be allowed to engage in any thoughts or studies which might excite her imagination; no fairy tales, no ghost stories, no association with anyone not approved by her mother.

Once the story reaches the point of Ada being married, when she is removed from the stultifying presence of her mother, a new portrait of Ada commences and she more resembles an individual with a personality of her own. Because of her position in society Ada comes into contact with many of the greatest people of her time and this novel is filled with the scientific advancements and literary masterpieces we know of from her lifetime, December 10, 1815 to November 27, 1852. Most notable among these, and the inventions she is most connected with, were the two very early versions of a computer being built by Mr. Babbage, the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine for which Ada created an algorithm based on the punched card system she had observed at a mill producing Jacquard fabric. This algorithm is the reason Ada Lovelace is considered to have been the first computer programmer.

My enjoyment of this story was hindered somewhat by the author's decision to spend so long pointing out how Ada Byron was formed by her mother and society into the person she eventually became. Still, I'm glad I read the information in the book and learned about the trials and victories of a woman who wanted so desperately to become a mathematician and how she endured to fulfil her dream.

A delightful, well-written book about a fascinating woman. Jennifer Chiaverini succeeds in giving Ada Byron Lovelace a strong, authentic and captivating voice. Highly recommended for all readers of historical fiction.

I was excited to have the chance to read a novelization of the life of Ada Lovelace, daughter of the great English romantic poet Lord Byron, who is often credited with writing the first computer algorithm. That algorithm, described in Lovelace's Note G, was to generate the sequence of Bernoulli numbers (numbers commonly found in some Taylor series expansions, power series like the Euler-Maclaurin series and the Riemann zeta function). Lovelace's accomplishment, as a mathematician and hypothetical programmer of Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, has long been shadowed by the tragedy of her death at age 36. (You can read Lovelace's treatise about the Babbage Analytical Engine here) Lovelace, while perhaps not the most pleasant person, led a fascinating though challenging life. She was clearly a brilliant mind. She believed that imagination was crucial to developing mathematics and eschewed her mother's rejection of all things fanciful. The strained relationship she developed with her mother was balanced with the counterpoint of her fascination with her famous (infamous?) father, who she never knew and who died on the Continent when she was only eight years old.

While this book was by no means bad, I was left feeling that it lacked luster and life. Early on, I was bothered by the awkward narrative choice in the first part of the book, in which Annabella, Lady Byron, appears to tell the story of her marriage to George Gordon, Lord Byron, only for us to be told after some 40 pages of third-person narration that it is Ada herself who is telling the story of her parents marriage and then switching to first-person narration and explaining/justifying how a seven-week-old infant can know all these many things. The first person perspective and the narrative pace became tedious at times. The best I can say is that the book may spur readers to read a biography of Lovelace.

Enchantress of Numbers is a fascinating look into the life of Ada Lovelace and her role in the development of computer programming. I am always interested in novels that discuss the lesser-known roles that women have played in large discoveries throughout history--and there are quite a lot--so I was extremely intrigued to read more about Ada Lovelace. I have previously read The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua, so I am familiar with the figures of Ada and Charles Babbage, but I was interested to read more about Ada herself from a more directed point of view.

Chiaverini begins the novel by first telling the story of Lord Byron and Lady Annebella Byron's initial meeting and eventual relationship. I found this to be a useful and interesting addition to the story, which helped to set up a better understanding of how Ada's life ended up being what it was. Chiaverini then continued the story by following Ada from her birth to her unfortunate early death in 1852. I did enjoy reading about her backstory and upbringing.

Ada was an interesting character to explore. She is depicted as an extremely forward-thinking woman who is both confident and ready to push herself and others to achieve great accomplishments. As a woman in the nineteenth century, she really had to force herself into a lot of situations where it was not common for women to be, and fortunately Ada was determined to do just that as a result of her strong passions. I was particularly interested in Ada's friendship with Babbage, and I enjoyed how Chiaverini depicted that relationship throughout the book. It was interesting to watch their relationship form and develop, although Ada herself was not a very dynamic figure in this book.

From a technical standpoint, we don't really know Ada's exact contributions to Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, and Chiaverini does note this in her Author's Note. She could have been the main creator behind the first computer algorithm, but this exact fact is up for debate among some scholars. Enchantress of Numbers, however, works off of the idea that she contributed quite a lot and is indeed the creator of the first computer algorithm.

One area that I do applaud Chiaverini in is her depiction of the setting and overall context of this story. She did a great job showcasing the current politics, technologies, and culture of the time period and location, which added an authentic atmosphere to the entire book.

The major issue I had with this book, however, was with the writing. Chiaverini's storytelling was not quite as involving as I would have liked it to be. Although I was interested in Ada's life, I didn't have many strong feelings towards her personally or towards any other characters. The author included many details that were helpful in understanding events of Ada's life, but in doing so she seemed to gloss over the more personal aspect that is important in any book that wants to draw readers in.

Overall, I have given Enchantress of Numbers three-and-a-half stars! I highly recommend this to any fans of historical fiction, those who want to learn more about women's contribution to history, or more about the history of technology.

The Story of Byron’s Daughter, Ada Lovelace

Ada’s parents were mismatched from the start. Byron, the scandalous romantic poet, and Annabella, her scientifically inclined mother, had little in comon. Their romance ended in marriage and finally a bitter divorce. Annabella refused to allow Byron access to his daughter, so she grew up with only his portrait and poems.

As a child, Ada was secluded by her mother, but she yearned for more intellectual discourse. Finally, as a debutante, she was introduced to the social circles in London that she craved. She married Thomas, Lord Lovelace, but the marriage suffered from Ada’s propensity for gambling and affairs. Her greatest and most well known achievement was helping Babbage with his computing machine. Some people call her the first computer programmer.

This is a very well researched book spanning not only Ada’s life, but her parents brief marriage. The book opens with her parent’s courtship then moves into Ada’s early life and finally her marriage. I enjoyed the brief description of her parent’s courtship and marriage. However, I found Ada’s early life slow going. The best part was the ending where she helped Babbage. Although the early life was interesting and gave us a picture of the factors that shaped Ada, I thought it was a bit too comprehensive.

If you’re interested in a strong female figure, I recommend this book. Ada worked at a scientific project at a time when most women were content to be wives and mothers.

I received this book from Dutton for this review.

Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, looks back on her life especially her relationship with her mother and her love of mathematics. The prologue is a long recounting of the tumultuous courtship and brief marriage of Lord Byron and Anne Milbanke including Ada's. After that overlong prologue Chiaverini has her narrator Ada recount her childhood from the moment her mother left Lord Byron when she was seven weeks old. Ada recounting events she couldn't possibly remember and probably wouldn't be told about in detail considering how much strain there was with her relationship with her mother was jarring. At points she goes into detail about everything that went on around her and how knowledgeable about various academic subjects ,which provides the reader some insight until you look at the date stamp at the beginning of each chapter and realize that she could not be more than two years old when these events occurred. Ada's unbelievable precociousness makes the first quarter of the book hard to get through. It doesn't get much easier to read as Ada gets older because every sentence is infused with how unfair her mother treats her and how she holds her back. This book covers almost all of Ada's life, yet it does not seem like she really grows much as a character as she gets older. The same could be said about her mother who comes across horribly, although Ada does not come out much better. Chiaverini's specialty is historical fiction which fleshes out the known facts of real people but they turn out to be more caricatures than real people. The book is at its strongest when Ada describes her mathematical and scientific passions, especially her work with Charles Babbage's Difference and Analytical Engines but that's something you could read about in Ada Lovelace's biographies and does not justify a fictional account of her life which really adds nothing but angst in her narrative. This book is mainly for those who like historical family melodramas, although outside of the prologue there really isn't much drama besides the tone of Ada's narration and that just make her an unlikable protagonist more than anything else. For those who want to learn more about Ada's place in computer science history you are better off sticking with the nonfiction works covering that very subject.

2.5 Stars. While I thought this was a very informative and well researched book about Ada Lovelace this at times was tedious to read. I didn't know much beforehand about her life except that she was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron who was considered a womanizer and who had a possible scandalous relationship with his half-sister. This was an insightful look into a young woman whose life begun in a custody battle after her parents became estranged and who suffered life under an overprotective mother who feared she would inherit the dreaded Byron constitution of depravity and over indulgence. As she grew up Ada could scarcely test her wings and fly because her mother quashed every notion she had whether it was friendship and of course, love. I felt for Ada because she was never given the chance to develop a relationship with her father except for reading his poems and hear about the notoriety of his life, it was a wonder that she went to become a mathematical genius in her own right being regarded as the first computer programmer.

It is a very rare thing that I don't finish abook - but that almost happened with this title. It just seemed to drag on and on. I found the main character / narrator to be rather unlikable - a haughty, entitled (even for her time) woman who described herself "precocious" and claimed to remember being an infant. The endless and drawn out descriptions of her mathematical studies seemed to go on for pages without relief. Occasionally there would be spurts of interesting story telling, but generally, I just didn't enjoy this and found myself reading the first two sentences of several paragraphs just to finish more quickly.
I usually enjoy historical fiction - perhaps this delved too far into a solitary person's thoughts and started to feel to contrived to me. Or maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this pseudo-memoir at the moment. Either way, I cannot recommend it.

I received a digital copy of "Enchantress of Numbers" from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have always enjoyed Jennifer Chiaverini's books, especially the Elm Creek Quilter's series, & have also read her historical fiction stand alone's. I have found that with the stand alone's, it always takes me awhile to get into the story, & this one was no exception.

That said, the story was interesting & at times had me feeling furious with her mother and husband. Fascinating life of someone I knew nothing about. The one part I did totally disagree with was at the beginning, when Ada is claiming to remember the details of her first years of life. I find that impossible, but it is just my opinion.

I would recommend this book to others, just know that it may be slow at some points.

The story of Ada Byron King, daughter of the famous poet, Lord Byron, and his wife, Lady Annabella Byron. The story begins with Annabella as a young, single woman meeting Lord Byron and regardless of warnings from friends and family, agrees to marry him. The story traces the young life of Ada through rough family times and showing her to always be a child and woman who loved to learn. Her favorite subjects were mathematics and music and her station in life allowed her to meet some of the most brilliant people during that time period in England. She also had an analytical mind that astonished innovative, mechanical engineers and she is considered to be the first computer programmer in the world. An excellent story that was written in a beautiful, loving way! I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to read historical fiction that closely follows true life! I loved it!

Enchantress of Numbers: A Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini will be available December 5, 2017 from Dutton, and imprint of Penguin Group. An egalley of this book was made available by the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

Although I personally didn't like this book, it's not because it was badly written, and I think there's an audience out there that would really like it. The subject (Ada Lovelace) and subject matter is certainly interesting. I found the first-person narration of detailed memories from being 6 weeks old off-putting, and the book never really recovered, although there were some fascinating parts.

Thanks PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and netgalley for this ARC.

Ill be forever a fan of Ada Lovelace and jennifer Chiaverini. This book is out of the world wonderful.

I knew Jennifer Chiaverini as the quilt novel author. She introduced me to the idea that quilts were signposts for the Underground Railroad in The Runaway Quilt which I loved. I knew that she'd been writing biographical novels of female historical figures, but I didn't sit up and take notice until it was Ada Lovelace in Enchantress of Numbers. I've always wanted to know more about her role in the development of the early precursors to computers. So I requested an ARC from Net Galley and was delighted when I was approved by the publisher. This is my review.

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Most discussions of Ada Lovelace begin by mentioning that she was Byron's daughter and that her parents scandalously separated. What's really astonishing in the context of the period is that her mother got custody of Ada. Children were considered property belonging to their fathers in 19th century England. In this case, it came down to the fact that Ada's mother, Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke known as Annabella to her friends, came from a wealthy family and Byron was debt-ridden. Debt was a major motivation for his marriage. So it seemed to me that Annabella's family was in a good position to buy justice for their daughter. It's probably just as well because the only time Byron did have custody of a daughter, he relinquished his parenting responsibility by packing her off to a convent.


Based on Chiaverini's depiction, Annabella wouldn't receive any awards for parenting herself. Yet she should be credited with making certain that Ada followed in her footsteps by pursuing mathematics. This was an extraordinary education for a daughter of the aristocracy. According to the article about her on Wikipedia, Annabella's parents hired a Cambridge professor as her tutor.

If Ada hadn't had Annabella as her mother, it's unlikely that she would have been so advanced mathematically.


In The Enchantress of Numbers, Ada's scientific mentor Mary Somerville told Ada about her conflict with her own parents over her studies. It was widely believed at that time that women's health would be jeopardized by intellectual stimulation. Mary Somerville's experiences caused Ada to appreciate her mother's encouragement of her scientific inclinations. I had never heard of Mary Somerville before I read this book, and was glad of the opportunity to learn about this foremother for woman scientists.


We can't really know about Ada's contribution to Charles Babbage's conceptualization of his proto-computers the Difference Engine and the Analytic Engine. This is a topic that is fodder for speculation for historical novelists like Chiaverini. I made the same argument about Einstein and his first wife in my review of The Other Einstein here. I feel that it's just as legitimate to claim that Ada made a significant contribution as to claim that she made none, and that it was all Babbage's idea. I believe that Chiaverini is persuasive about what she attributes to Ada Lovelace.


Ada's written notes are clearly attributable to her, and they show her to be a woman ahead of her time. The Enchantress of Numbers displays her context. She had influences, and sources of support which do not lessen her achievements. Isaac Newton is quoted as having said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of giants." Jennifer Chiaverini helps us to identify who Ada might have stood on. Yet every designer of a computer algorithm stands on Ada's shoulders because she created the very first such algorithm.

I was excited to read about Ada Lovelace a mathematician and when I discovered she was Lord Byron's daughter I thought it would be even better. But the story of her life dragged and did not engage me. I wanted to like the story, all the elements were there - struggling against a parent and society to accomplish a dream but for some reason I never became invested.

A story about Lord Byron’s only legitimate daughter and how she grows up, meets Charles Babbage and becomes the world’s first computer programmer? Really? This concept is too outrageous to swallow, but it’s true, and Jennifer Chiaverini has written a fictional biography of Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, that is as entertaining as it is informative.
Ada was, indeed, Lord Byron’s legitimate daughter by his wife, Lady Annabella Byron, but her parents were estranged and Ada never knew her illustrious, but also notorious, father. Just as she shielded her daughter from her father’s bad influence, Lady Annabella also tried to shield her from what she feared might be the bad influences of too much imagination. Instead, she encouraged her daughter to pursue her own interests, science and mathematics.
The life of a well-born woman in the nineteenth century, with all of its artificial conventions and demands, is not one that many women today would choose, but it had its compensations. Ada seemed to know, and often was related to, every famous Briton of her time, from the Duke of Wellington (of Waterloo fame) to Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, and Charles Dickens. Her exposure to these prominent thinkers helped stimulate her exceptional mind, and she was especially drawn to the work of Charles Babbage and his designs for the Difference Engine and the Analytic Engine. It was Ada who took the concept of punched cards as used in Jacquard looms and recognized that they could be used to vastly increase the power and versatility of Babbage’s engines.
Ada tells her own story, and I almost felt as if I could be reading a book by one of my favorite nineteenth-century authors as she describes the rituals of society, class, and personal relationships as practiced by Britain’s elite. I was equally fascinated by her personal life and by the descriptions of the society that shaped and constrained her movements.
Enchantress of Numbers is “a work of fiction inspired by history”, but it is very much based in fact, and I appreciated the Acknowledgments section that lets the reader sort the facts from the fiction.
Ada Lovelace is remembered today because of her contribution to what would become computer science, but this is a book about her life, not her work. There is some discussion of the technical details, but readers who are primarily interested in the Analytic Engine and Ada’s contributions will find more extended treatment of that in more technical books.
Ada’s importance to the computer field has been recognized by the US Defense Department, which not only named the programming language Ada after her but also approved the Ada reference manual on December 10, her birthday, and gave it the reference number MIL-STD-1815, the year of her birth. Ada would have been thrilled!