I just finished reading Hester, by Laurie Lico Albanese. This is such an unusual book that even describing it is a challenge. The setting is early 19th c. Salem. The protagonist is a woman with kinesthesia, which frightens people. For Isobel, the risk is always in being identified as a witch by people who do not understand her abilities. Isobel spends much of her time hiding who she is, which creates the central tension in the novel.

Hester is compelling. I hated to finish this book and leave these characters behind. The allusions to Hester Prynn are fascinating and are really another puzzle to solve. There are a lot of details and for some readers, who prefer a novel with brief descriptions, Hester might not be a good fit. That would be unfortunate.

In spite of the title, Hester is not a retelling of the Scarlet letter. Instead it is inspired by The Scarlet Letter "A". Readers should allow theselves to be transported back 200 years, where women led vastly different lives and under grave social restrictions.

I really enjoyed the imaginative nature of this book and it's telling of the inspiration for The Scarlet Letter. The ways in which women of the time were called witches or accused of casting spells was well researched and Isobel is compelling character. I felt the romance with Nathanial Hathorne a little unrealistic in its speed and unfolding; but the intrigue of the story and how it connected to The Scarlet Letter kept me interested and entertained. Overall, it's a page turner, heavy on plot, but with a few well-developed characters too.

And a note to the copy editor: In chapter 9 It's County Cork, (not Cork County) Ireland that Nell is from. All Irish counties are spoken as county first. :)

A haunting tale of a woman with kinesthesia who sees colors associated with people and words. With a Scottish ancestor who was accused of being a witch and escaped, she hides her abilities to protect herself and her family. With a gift for sewing and needlework, she longs to design and create beautiful clothing. That saves her life when she and her poppy-addicted husband move to America to start a new life. This is truly a love story, fraught with the difficulties of choosing a good man and the challenges of being a woman when women are not respected. Set in Salem, Massachusetts and sewn together with witch trial history and the end of slavery, this is a heart-rending story of trials and triumph. It is a story of strong women helping each other in many hidden ways. I'm still thinking about it. It occupies my mind and makes me appreciate having skills I have been able to use to support myself when relationships have failed me. Truly haunting. Beautifully written, past and present woven together in the resilient fabric of life.

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese is a historical fiction story that reimagines Hester Prynn- the famous heroine from ‘The Scarlet Letter’ as a real-life woman that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his classic book. This novel is essentially historical fiction based on historical fiction…

The story follows Isobel Gamble, a young Scottish seamstress who embarks on a journey to the new world with her doctor husband Edward. The couple lands in Salem where threads of deceit and lies threaten to unravel the new life that Isobel has attempted to make for herself. When Edward leaves Isobel to be a medic on a ship, Isobel is forced to start from scratch in a strange land that offers no mercy or protection for the weak and vulnerable. Isobel finds creative ways to survive with her needle and thread which awakens family secrets and gifts that could either set her free or trap her in the snares of Salem’s cruelties.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the yet to be famous author, begins interacting with Isobel and they soon realize they have fallen under each other’s spell. They both become entranced with each of their special talents -Nathaniel’s gift of storytelling and Isobel’s mesmerizing needlework. The more they interact with each other, the more powerful their talents become and the more their pasts begin to haunt them. Nathaniel is forced to grapple with his sordid family history of the witch trials, while Isobel must learn how to control her special ancestral talents, or else suffer the wrath of sin and guilt, in a place and time where being different could snag a thread and unravel the whole fabric of society.

At its core, Hester is a feminist survival story about the female creative power that has been suppressed and weaponized throughout history. Isobel is at constant odds with herself over whether she should embrace or shun her special gifts. Her talent for needlework reached new heights when she opened her heart to love but she struggled to accept her talent when she experienced unbearable pain. The tension between the visible and invisible, light and dark, white and black, past and present, right and wrong, and expression and suppression, imagination and reality weaves a bewitching story about the power of creativity to access the hidden truth. Each of the characters in this story grapple with the stark perception of their realities and are each searching for more colour, meaning, and purpose in their lives. The harsh and intolerable cruelties of 19th century American life are on full display in this book, offering a spectrum of the various ways marginalized peoples were made to suffer. Is awareness freedom? Is creativity the key to survival? Is love destructive or regenerative? How do you change your perception? These are the rich questions asked and answered in this compelling, sensual, and moving read.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had high hopes for Hester as I was ‘forced’ to read The Scarlet Letter in school and loved it. Much to my disappointment, I did not care for this book. The premise of Hester was to provide a real life connection to the idea that Hawthorne could have based Hester upon an actual person he encountered. While the idea is interesting I don’t feel like the author quite pulls it off. I found the book dull and the main character’s synesthesia repetitively annoying. I did find the references to the Salem witch trials interesting, but the many references to slavery trite and so overdone. If you feel the need to pontificate about slavery at least present all the facts and don't make it a one-sided white vs. black issue. A disappointing read for me!

I have just finished reading Hester by Author Laurie Lico Albanese.

What a beautifully written and enchanting book this was.

The storyline takes place in both the 1800’s in Scotland, and then in the new world of Salem.

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress who leaves her homeland of Edinburgh, with her older husband Edward who is an apothecary. Edward has fallen under the spell of opium and has other troubles throughout the years.

Isobel is taught to sew at a very young age by her mother but encouraged to sew without colour.

There is mention of The Salem Witch trials, and the book is also has a bit of spinoff of The Scarlet Letter.

It’s magical, intriguing, a bit of a love story and just so much more!


Thank you to Goodreads, Author Laurie Lico Albanese, and St. Martin's Press for my advanced copy to read and review.
#NetGalley

Hester
By Laurie Lico Albanese

A vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England's witchcraft trials.

Who is the real Hester Prynne?

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic––leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible.

When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows––while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As the weeks pass and Edward's safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?

In this sensuous and hypnotizing tale, a young immigrant woman grapples with our country's complicated past, and learns that America's ideas of freedom and liberty often fall short of their promise. Interwoven with Isobel and Nathaniel's story is a vivid interrogation of who gets to be a "real" American in the first half of the 19th century, a depiction of the early days of the Underground Railroad in New England, and atmospheric interstitials that capture the long history of "unusual" women being accused of witchcraft. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Laurie Lico Albanese's Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down.

*My review to come closer to pubdate.

I need to start off by saying that I have never read The Scarlet Letter. I am at a complete loss of words other than this book is amazing and completely blew me away.

I received a free copy of this book from Net Gally in exchange for my honest review.

Wow... Now I've gotta reread The Scarlet Letter!

This book was beautifully written. There's so much that it's hard to summarize. But very basically , it's a spin on the muse behind The Scarlet Letter. However, there's so much more to it and even without that link the Novel is great in itself. The imagery in this book made me feel like I was there. It also tied in The Salem Witch trials and the Underground Railroad beautifully. It didn't take long to get into but it did get better as it went. I'd recommend for anyone interested in Historical Fiction based in early America, Classics, Magic and so much more.. Just read it! Easily my favorite read of the year so far!

"Hester" is what I call a 'good old-fashioned book'. That is high praise coming from me. Although the book tells a story that has some dire circumstances and ups and downs for the protagonist, it is written in a no-frills, no thrills manner. Just straight story-telling in the manner of 19th-century authors Austen, Dickens, Conrad, Cooper, the Brontës, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, upon whom a character in "Hester" is loosely based. Sometimes after I have written a review of a book immediately after finishing it, I find myself wanting to add more, especially if it is a book I loved. This is one of those books. If you have not read "The Scarlet Letter" lately (or ever!) I would advise you to read it before reading "Hester". I believe reading Hawthorne's novel first will add much to your enjoyment of "Hester". "Hester is an ingenious synonymous relating of "The Scarlet Letter".
The book teaches much history, in the detailed descriptions of sea travel, retail and wholesale purchases, manner of dress, and in talk of the Salem Witch Trials and slavery affecting US Northerners in the early 1800s. The title is a reference to "The Scarlet Letter" but Hester's partner in sin is an entirely different character. The exploration of moral and spiritual issues are the same, as well as questions of the meaning of freedom and liberty in the early 1800s. This is the first novel by Laurie Lico Albanese that I have read but it will not be the last.
Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the DRC of this book.

Laurie Lico Albanese seizes upon a dazzlingly inventive concept in HESTER and the reader is instantly immersed in a rich, inventive novel tracking the intriguing pulse points of Nathaniel Hawthorne's life and work. A read to savor--Many thanks to St Martins and to Netgalley for the opportunity and pleasure of an early read.

“Hester” by Laurie Lico Albanese asks the question “who inspired Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”?”

As a high schooler, I read “The Scarlet Letter” for my English class. I enjoyed the book, but must admit that it was so dissected in class that I never wanted to re-read it. So, before reading this book, I read an online summary of “The Scarlet Letter” to refresh my memory of the overall plot and ended up going down an information rabbit hole about Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I thought it interesting to imagine that, like Mr. Hawthorne’s other books, “The Scarlet Letter” was also based upon an incident in Hawthorne’s life. The reader is introduced to Isobel Gamble - a seamstress who has synesthesia (seeing colors associated with words either read or spoken). For Isobel, the letter A is red and that becomes her “signature” when embroidering (which ties into "The Scarlet Letter"). I found the character of Isobel interesting - her husband steals her money, then abandons her without funds or food, and Isobel scrambles to find wages via her embroidering - basically she is trying to survive given the constraints of the time and where she is living. Like Hester, she does what she can with what she has. Nathaniel Hawthorne, however, seems trapped by the actions of his ancestors (I’m not sure why he was obsessed about Dorcas Good, for instance) and very angsty. Although I understood why Isobel and Nathaniel would/could be attracted to each other, at the same time I really wondered why. I found the sections regarding Isobel’s family history did not work for me and I ended up skimming those sections as I felt they distracted from Isobel’s story. The author’s prose was a bit flowery for me and, as in “The Scarlet Letter,” there’s not a lot of action. I did find some of the side stories interesting, but I also found some things tied together a bit too neatly, though plausible, I guess. I did like the Author’s Note listing some sources Ms. Albanese consulted. I was a bit disappointed that this book didn’t work for me as well as I hoped it would.

Absolutely brilliant historical fiction.
Take a well-known figure from history, in this case Nathaniel Hawthorne. Choose a period of their life which has always been a bit mysterious, for him the decade or so after college. Throw in a mysterious fact: of his 5 published novels, only one has no known tie-in to his real life. Finish off by telling that story, create the perfect tie-in to his real life, make it make sense as to why he never would have written about it or owned up to it, make it just believable enough that you really don't have to wonder "what if...?" Tell the story of the immigrant woman who fell in love with him, inspired his novel, and whose life and struggles and almost ruin and survival becomes a bigger and better story. Yep. That's the stuff.
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this digital ARC to read and review. #Hester #NetGalley 🤩📚💕 Pub date 10/04/22

I loved reading this book! I found the writing to be very insightful and interesting. I was intrigued by the premise and I enjoyed reading it from start to finish.

I love this kind of book. Take a classic, The Scarlet Letter, and a historical event, the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and re-imagine them from the perspective of a different character. There was also a strong theme around slavery present. I don't think I ever thought about Nathaniel Hawthorne existing at this time. As a bonus, our heroine has synesthesia - she sees colors for sounds, words, and letters. This is the second book I've read that features synesthesia. If you enjoyed that aspect, check out The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder.

Great book! Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance copy.

An absolutely beautifully written novel based on the real Hester Prynne from the classic The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Firstly, I was initially denied for a copy of this on Edelweiss and I was totally bummed by a stroke of luck the author was gifting readers on NetGalley a chance to read it now for a few days and it was my oh so lucky day! Thank you to author Laurie Lico Albanese and NetGalley for gifting readers an opportunity to read this awesome book!

Told between dual timelines Hester begins in the early 1800's with the beautiful young seamstress Isobel and her ambitious apothecary husband Edward who set sail from Scotland to Salem in hopes of prosperity in a new country. But after shortly arriving in their new land Edward with his addiction to the Opium he cultivates for cures leads him to depart on an outgoing ship where he will serve as a medic leaving Isobel to fend for herself. Alone and frightened Isobel uses her gift of sewing to create sumptuous works of clothing for the local gentry women as a means to survive. As she begins to find meaning in life amid her skills she meets young handsome author Nathaniel Hawthorne, a man tormented by the ghosts of his ancestors who were chiefly responsible for the demise of falsely accused women branded as witches during the Salem Witch hunts of the 1660's. Together they are dangerously involved with each other knowing their love affair could be discovered by her returning husband and by the gossiping harpies of Salem. Without giving away anymore details of the storyline, this was a truly beautiful nuanced reimagining of the woman who inspired the character of Hester Prynne and the fierce women of Isobel's heritage who paved her way to survive. Recommended.

This novel is witchcraft. It’s spell binding. Magical. The perfect blend of the original plot mixed with a modern take. Every character - from the main protagonist Isobel to the most minor of secondary characters has a rich and dynamic back story. The layers of humanity - what makes a person good/bad, generous/greedy, sinful/innocent is perfectly told through these characters. I loved the way the story kept true to the original, while also weaving the plot around the topics of the Salem Witch Trials and The Underground Railroad and making the journey the characters follow have a ripple effect through all three. Overall one of the best retellings I have read!

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese is a great historical fiction that takes us into the world of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the complex and intriguing woman that helped inspire the classic novel. I enjoyed it.

This is my first book by this author and I am impressed by her talent and ability to create a vivid, realistic account of an historical time period. I really felt as if I was transported to era of the Salem witch trials in 17th century New England. It was definitely not an easy time for the faint of heart. The detail and research to create such a lifelike and descriptive account was evident throughout.

This is more of a character-based narrative at its heart, and seeing the emotion, thoughts, inspirations, fears, and pivotal moments that were potentially part of the foundation of Hester as we know her from the author’s experiences with, and of, Isobel, was very interesting, especially from such a unique perspective. I definitely have not read anything quite like this before, and I mean that in a positive way.

4/5 stars

Thank you NG and St. Martin’s Press for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 10/4/22.

This was a DNF for me at 47%. The premise of The Scarlet Letter having inspiration by a real individual was exciting, but the book lacked solid plot by the point of DNF and there was barely a presence of Hawthorn at all for a book half about himself. Isobel did nothing for me and I just couldn't get myself to want to read it. I won't be reviewing elsewhere.

Reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" can be a struggle, especially if forced to by school, but for me it was an interesting story when I first came across it, through the film with Demi Moore and Gary Oldman, and then the book. I have been aware of speculations about its source of inspiration for a while, all of them steeped in 17th century Puritan New England history with its witch hunt trials, its laws against adultery that hoisted red A letters on the convicted, and the generally oppressive atmosphere that Hawthorne himself detested.

So the idea presented in this novel was intriguing: what if "The Scarlet Letter" was based on Hawthorne himself? Supposedly, all his other novels' source of inspiration are known save for "The Scarlet Letter," a claim that had me doubting it from the start, as I'm not aware that there's a lack of candidates for Hawthorne's inspiration for Hester Prynne. Nonetheless, I kept an open mind and read on to see unfold this premise that Hester really existed and that Dimmesdale was Hawthorne himself, who later would base his bestselling novel on this adulterous love affair he was involved in.

And it was utterly unconvincing. For one, the author provided no argument but "What if?" The gist of it being that since there's supposedly no personal life inspiration for the novel, then that must mean Hawthorne had to have experienced the story himself and must have had an affair with a real-life Hester. And that's it. No proof. No argument as to why it's plausible. Nothing but a circular argument that it had to be personal experience. And that's where the story lost me, as there's absolutely no logical basis and it disregards any other possibilities that are far more plausible, and have actual proof, for what could've been Hawthorne's inspiration, which isn't as mysterious as it's claimed here. And also, why is it assumed that novelists need to have personal experiences with something to write about that particular topic? Even the most personal and inward-looking writers do write about stuff outside their experience sometimes, <i>especially</i> historical fiction writers because the very nature of the genre requires they write about things they haven't experienced personally. And "The Scarlet Letter" is a historical novel. Furthermore, there are bits in the novel that are easy to tie with Hawthorne's personal life besides the Hester/Dimmesdale affair, and there's actual historical records of cases that are surprisingly like the plot of the novel and that took place within easy distance of Hawthorne's own hometown. So no, it's not convincing to me.

But even if we take the premise as purely speculative and go along with it, it still didn't make for a captivating story by the telling. I struggled with the often flowery bordering on purple prose, the back-to-the-past inserts that throw you back centuries to tell a parallel story that was choppy and syncopated. And I also struggled with the synesthesia descriptions, that is the intersection of two sensory networks that results in the mingling of two or more senses (you "see" sound, you "hear" colours, etc.), which is overdone. My older sister is a synesthete, she can do what the character of Isobel Gamble can do, so I can tell that the descriptions of Isabel's synesthesia is exaggerated, Hollywoodish, and described like a non-synesthete imagines it is. Also, the ideas about synesthesia in the times before modern neurology could study it are far more complex than the detestable mindset that assumes anything not liable to be explained by modern science was automatically linked to witchcraft by the people back then.

The real Hawthorne was an interesting person, but here he comes across as weak and mostly subservient to the story of the fictional Isabel Gamble, who is hard to like and harder to relate. I do get that the novel tries to show how terribly constrained a woman's life could be back then, and it does succeed in that, although this is not exactly hard to achieve given that Salem, Massachussetts practically writes itself as the byword for oppressive, misogynistic Puritanism. Basically, it turns into a "The Scarlet Letter" fanfiction about the real author with a fictional character instead, a relationship too underdeveloped and full of adolescent angst that doesn't resonate the same way Hawthorne's novel does, whose strength is in showing the most iconic strong and independent woman in American literature.