This is an interesting topic and there is a lot of information in this book. I enjoyed the discussion of heiresses in fiction as well as fact and think the historical context is critical to understanding the fortunes and plights of women who inherit fortunes. However, I found the book somewhat dry and choppy - the flow was off for me. Not the most enjoyable read but very informative.

Money can't buy happiness, cliche that it is, seems to all too often stand true for most of these lives. The author has definitely done meticulous research, interweaving stories and fortunes and titles and family ties smoothly. I do have to admit to thinking I should have been keeping a score card to keep it all ordered in my mind, however. Some familiarity with royal titles, history (mostly focus is on 18-19th centuries), and intertwining relationships might help, too. Mine was fuzzy, long lost in ol' college class notes, but the frequency certain names pops up helps. It only shows how much of the past is intertwined and how forces of history impact lives.

I alternately felt sadness for those involved, anger at how things were in the times, and heartened at the success stories of these women caught up in extraordinary times and surviving when so much was pitted against them. Interestingly enough, some of the successes involved same sex relationships or marriage with a like minded husband. No matter what the relationship, however, good, bad, or indifferent, their stories are absorbing ones.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #StMartinsPress for the ARC and this fascinating look at a part of history that is unfamiliar to most.

Such an interesting topic! This book examines the lives of women who, for many reasons, assume large fortunes and how they handle that wealth.
The author not only uses more modern examples, but goes back historically to examine women and wealth.

I found this fascinating as a historical document which will certainly help women examine the issues which have surrounded women with inherited fortunes.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

Heiresses is an incredibly enjoyable read that looks at the plight of the heiress across time. This book was incredibly entertaining and was easy to read. That being said, the organization of the book confused me somewhat. At times it seemed that the book was divided by heiress, but then it would switch to being about topics. Very strange. Also, the author very much depends on the reader having intimate knowledge of the Mitford sisters, which I do not have. Overall, I can recommend this as an enjoyable and worthwhile read.

Thank you to St. Martin Press and Netgalley for giving me a free eARC of the book. This is a pretty thorough look at various heiresses of different eras - I'll admit I was expecting the book to focus on American heiresses specifically, but I was pleasantly surprised to see heiresses from the 17th, 18th and 19th century being included as well. The author knows her topic pretty well and manages to immerse the reader into the period despite all the name dropping and the fact the author would jump from one period to another more often than not. I can't help but wonder if more chapters shorter length focusing on each individual heiress would have helped the overall flow, but this was really enjoyable nonetheless and I'm interested in checking out other books by Laura Thompson.

An interesting topic but I found the book itself was written in a disjointed manner.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

This is very detail look about past Heiresses, but its not a book about how glamorous or how wonderful being a Heiresses is, but instead it shows how women who have money can also live terrible lives and what's worst the people who supposedly care for these women don't . Thompson starts with a woman in the 1400 who was very well off but once she became married she was like most woman back then who were controlled by their husbands and didn't have any vote on what happen to them or their money, and it is very upsetting to think that there was no help for her. As the book continues Thompson talks about how time went on there were women who were able to control their money but that didn't stop their lives from being less chaotic. It felt like to me that most of these women didn't like themselves very much and try to fill there sadness with acts of self-destruction. They seem to have no true purpose for life and didn't know what to do with themselves.
This was a very thought out book but the subject matter was a little upsetting at times.

I want to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book

I found this book to be an insightful and heavily researched read. The book explores the lives of numerous women from the 1600s onwards. Of particular interest to me was the first section with the emphasis on forced marriages and kidnapping for sport. This exploration of women's rights through the lens of the uber-wealthy heiresses was unique. I also appreciated the author's voice and writing style, which shone through in commentary.

What didn't work as well for me, however, was that there was a lot of information hopping. We'd start with one heiress, who would remind the author of another heiress and her sister from years prior, who would be the mistress of another heiress' grandfather... All of these names and dates started to merge together for me, and unfortunately, I often felt a bit lost.

Still, as a whole, this book was a detailed and revealing read into a fascinating topic. These women lived wild and interesting lives, although also often heartbreaking and full of despair -- and I thought that overall, this was a good historical read.

I thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book. I commend Laura Thompson for taking on this subject and attempting to make it into an interesting read. The subject matter is fascinating, as Heiresses do lead a very unusual life. Between the kidnappings, excessive living, and unhappiness the book lurches from one story to another. It is easy to get confused, and sometimes the author puts us into contemporary time and adds an out-of-context comment. I felt at times lost, and the chapters went on forever. Why was this person pulled here, and what was the point of the finally story after we were brought into a more modern time?
I think the book could have been so much better with more organization, and maybe a different structure. The bones are there, but ultimately I had a difficult timing finishing. I did in the end learn a thing or two but was happy to finally finish.

This book was the story of famous heiresses through out history and there was more to their story than meets the eye. It was a very informative book. I enjoyed it.

Heiresses by Laura Thompson is a great book, incredibly informative and interesting topic and subject.

Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura Thompson (3 Stars)

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

The subject is captivating, one we can never get enough. Are these million dollar babies the luckiest women on earth, or doomed because of all that has been bestowed upon them? Yes, they have fancy clothes and beautiful homes and leisure time, but through the ages they have been kidnapped, held for ransom, forced into loveless marriages or confined to asylums in order to separate them from their money.

The author begins a few hundred years ago, when heiresses were regularly kidnapped and married, thereby giving the “husband” control over his wife’s money. Laws were changed to treat women more equitably, at least to a point. The author spends quite a bit of the book examining the laws of the time. Finally, we move through the years to a time when a husband isn’t automatically given control of his wife’s fortune, but he had the option to confine her to an asylum and go on with his lifestyle unhampered.

There are a lot of women portrayed in this book, and while the subject is captivating, the writing is not. There are a lot of literary references to bodice-heaving books and authors I’ve never read, or particularly cared about, and there are way tooooo many Jane Austen references. There was also a disconnect in the writing as the author begins with one woman’s story then begins talking about another, who we know nothing about, and adds in some others who are part of the same social circle, then backtracks to the first. I was lost.

There were some fascinating stories, but it was just too much work.

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This was a fabulously informative and gossipy insider take on "heiresses' throughout the centuries. Beginning is the late 1600's author Thompson describes 'heiress abduction' , coercion and fortune hunting on the part of
various nefarious 'gentlemen' and marriage meant in the way of personal liberty and access to funds (none) for the heiress once she tied the knot. Then on to the 1800's and early 20th century , all the while schooling us on the changes in society and the laws of inheritance, although this did not lead to happy outcomes for many of the heiresses whose lives she detailed. I found it to be a wonderfully researched and well written history, and enjoyed it very much. I would recommend it to people interested in feminist history and the social scene of the 19th & 20th century heiress. My only criticism is that I feel it ended rather abruptly. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC which comes out in Feb. 2022

This was a really interesting book. Laura Thompson tells really compelling stories of doomed heiresses through the centuries. Thompson uses literary comparisons from Jane Austen to Edith Wharton to Nancy Mitford to great effect, showing the changing statuses of these girls and women through the changing times.

The first section of the book discusses girls (and some of them were just girls) and women who weren't protected by their moneyed and titled lives. The stories of Mary Davis Grosvenor (yes, that Grosvenor), Catherine Tylney Long, and Ellen Turner are used to show these changes in the roles and outcomes of heiresses in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. They were used as pawns to exchange wealth and lands and secure alliances. Some were literally kidnapped and married against their will, just ("just") for their inheritances. Others thought themselves in love with men who would ultimately steal their fortunes, having them sign them away or just spending it all themselves - women didn't have their own property once married and so these men could spend it all with impunity. Marriage laws were changed but women were still often at a disadvantage with the men in their lives.

Thompson next moves on to the million dollar princesses, those rich American girls whose wealth was used to buy themselves a title and help resuscitate dying aristocratic families and stately homes. New moneyed girls wouldn't be accepted into high society back home, but many Englishmen were willing to overlook common origins when they came with a high enough dollar value. Called "buccaneers," an early example of this was Jennie Jerome, but one of the most famous is Consuelo Vanderbilt. Again, many of these weren't happy marriages, built as they were upon a business transaction. Consuelo's in particular became known for how unhappy the participants truly were. Again, marriage and divorce laws were changed and women had a bit more agency over their lives.

Around the same time, and running parallel in some cases, were the heiresses who took hold of their money and did what they wanted with it. Many of these women were lesbians, left to run free by virtue of their money. They ran salons in Paris and Venice. They became involved in politics and philanthropy. They raced horses, loved fashion, did drugs. This is probably the happiest section of Thompson's book. These women took hold of their money and lives and made them their own. While these women had fun and didn't see themselves tragically, Thompson rewrites the story of Daisy Fellowes to show how it could be bent into the "poor little rich girl" narrative.

In the last main section, Thompson returns to the "unprotected" women, the women who were burdened by and careless with their money, but also the women who wanted to throw off their millions and do better things. The example of Alice de Janze shows how money doesn't buy happiness; she lost her children and attempted - and ultimately succeeded in - committing suicide. Nancy Cunard rebelled against her heiress mother and supported anti-racist and African causes, while wasting away on drugs and drink. Some gave away their properties to the National Trust, Rose Dugdale joined the IRA. Thompson also mentions Patty Hearst and Barbara Mackle, as of old, kidnapped heiresses held for ransom.

In the epilogue Thompson shows a different type of heiress, Angela Burdett-Coutts, who was friends with Charles Dickens and used her money for unglamorous social causes. She improved schools for poor children, started housing for prostitutes, gave to the RSPCA, sent money to Ireland after the potato famine. Ultimately she too was of a similar type though, marrying a much younger man, though was lucky in that he furthered her causes rather than squandering her money.

This was a fascinating book full of interesting women with both happy and sad stories. Most of them are cautionary tales of a sort - money can buy happiness but only to an extent. You can see why Thompson chose these stories - they're wild! Some of these women even inspired fictional stories either directly or indirectly (Barry Lyndon and The Buccaneers are notable examples). Thompson makes even despicable, or at least unsympathetic, people bearable - you feel for these "poor little rich girls" no matter their circumstances. This was yet another excellent book by Laura Thompson.

As anumber of other readers have noted, this was not at all what I expected it to be... It read like a graduate thesis, which is fine if that's what you expected going in - but the description led me to expect more of a series of narratives about the lives of these women, digging into their backstories as well as into the academic notion of what it meant to be an heiress and a woman treated as property... It made for a very dry read that I had a hard time following, as it felt repetitive and meandering in a lot of places. The focus was frequently more on the time periods described than on the women, and again while that is fine as a topic for a book it was not what I expected or was looking for. I wanted to read more about the lives of the women, not just the academic notion of what it was to be an heiress in history.

I wish to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book is truly amazing when you consider the amount of research that went into the writing of the history of all of the different stories. It begins in the 1700’s in England when young girls were kidnapped and forced into marriages to older men who only wanted their dowry and legacy monies. I have always heard about Gretna Green but now I understand its importance The story continues through the golden age when American women of great wealth wanted European titles for their daughters and then on to current times up to Cristina Onassis, Patty Hearst and Barbara Hutton. There is something for everyone in this book that highlights all the scandals of the times involved in the pursuit of marriages for money.

I was fascinated by the title and really looked forward to reading it. I will say that I thought it could have been shorter as many of the characters were explained over and over again and there were so many that I got lost in sheer volume of it all. I loved the description of their lives, homes and travels and the things that made each person really unique. My heart broke for so many of those lonely women who found themselves in loveless marriages or marriages where money was the only thing that interested the husband. Over all, the entire book was very informative but too wordy. I was torn between rating this book with 3 or 4 stars and since I could not give it a 3 ½ I gave it a 4 Star rating.

Read this one for yourself to learn how the rich live their lives.

This book read much more like an academic reference book than I expected. I thought I was getting a collection of salacious moments, gossip column style, and some juicy backstory. Instead as others noted, this was a clunky read that read like a rambling, spacey conversation, jumping all over the place and dropping names and dates. Fact-dumping with a hyperactive tone. I am absolutely down to read a feminist thesis, but I need to know that's what I'm going into; and this made me feel like I was back in my gender studies courses, and not in a good way.

If this had been presented as a research paper, I think I'd have approached it differently. While I can recognize the research and interesting feminist theory platforms presented in this book, as a casual, entertaining read, it unfortunately fell flat for me.

Fascinating, gossipy, historical look at British and American heiresses in literature and life. From poor kidnapped adolescents to women behaving foolishly, and from Jane Austen to Wilkie Collins. Great fun.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read this galley.

This book wasn’t what I expected. I felt the author failed to state the obvious—in plain language—and the author attempted to put too much information together. I anticipated being able to get to know each featured heiress but what I got was a jumble of names, dates, and numerous references to other publications (I’d not read) such as the 1920 novel by Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence.” Frequently I found myself reading a section and then puzzling over the point the author intended for the reader to get. It was challenging to understand the comparative connections made in the span of a few sentences (or sometimes paragraphs) such as jumping from the Duke of St. Austrey’s to Meghan Markle and Jeff Bezos then on to Alva Vanderbilt and Consuela Yznaga, ending with Caroline Astor. The jumping from person-to-person happens throughout the book.

From the many references to other publications, included quotes, and names, it’s clear the author did much research. It’s unfortunate the writings weren’t written about fewer people and in a clearer way.

Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This well researched book covers the life of an heiress in the mid-late 1700’s and into the 20th century. The heiresses of England are sought out by and sometimes abducted by men with titles who are seeking wealth. Once they marry, the wife becomes property and everything that was hers is now his. He lives the life of luxury spending her money and enjoying his mistresses. Later, when women begin to have some rights she can have some control over her life and funds. The freedom does not bring happiness to the heiresses in this novel. It is a sad situation when a person doesn’t know if she’s desired for herself or for her money.