The House of Lincoln by Nancy Horan takes us to Springfield, IL prior to the Civil War. The story is told through Ana, an immigrant from Madeira, Spencer Donnegan, a black pastor/barber and The Lincoln’s. A well researched and written historical fiction. This book gives a different perspective and information on the civil war and Abraham Lincoln. It shows us a young attorney in Springfield and his rise to the presidency. This author also wrote Loving Frank. Both are excellent reads! Thank you to NetGallery for letting me review this book.

This book is written from the perspective of a young Portuguese immigrant, Ana Ferriera, whose family settled in Springfield, Illinois, having been victims of religious persecution. The story follows Mary Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln’s career, with slavery and the Civil War as major points. However, this is not a biography, and more of a saga. Horan is a very talented writer who has done an extensive amount of research for this book. I loved her book, Loving Frank, as well.

I chose to read the Houseof Lincoln because I adored Loving Frank, an earlier work of Nancy Horgan from several years ago. I also was very interested in the setting of Springfield, IL, , as it is just 100 miles from my home and an area I am somewhat familiar with. Ms Horgan paints a picture of the family life of the Lincoln’s, the minds of the community regarding the increasing racial diversity and a clearer picture of the somewhat unstable mental health of Nancy Todd Lincoln. Much of this is presented thru the eyes of Portuguese Immigrant, Anna Ferreira, a Mother’s Helper in the Lincoln household who becomes close to Mrs. Lincoln. Anna’s Best Friend is a young Black woman and provides a connection to the Black community, including a glimpse of the Underground Railroad. There is a lot of food for thought in this simply presented novel and I would especially recommend it for teen history buffs! Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity for an early read in exchange for an honest review.
#NetGalley. #HouseofLincoln

Another great book by Nancy Horan. It gives a different perspective on the Civil War era. It covers the ways society dealt with the issues of slavery and race.

I was excited to read this because Horan’s Loving Frank was a book that has resonated with me for years and I was hoping this would deliver as well. I read Booth earlier this year so I was in the Lincoln mindset and I enjoyed this different perspective. While this novel was not a page turner, I still enjoyed it. I loved the narration from Ana, a different narrator than one might expect from a civil war novel; she’s a Portuguese immigrant living in Springfield and working (at points in the book) for the Lincoln family. The three narrators (Ana, Mary Todd Lincoln and a freed Black man, Spencer Donnegan) all had such different experiences in this time period leading up to the civil war, during and after that it lead to the novel’s richness. Their chapters also gave their observations of Lincoln as a person, a family man and a politician.

This novel is dense with historical lessons as told from the multiple narrators: the Lincoln Douglas debates, the Underground Railroad, the Illinois Black Laws, the Springfield Race Riot of 1908 as well as Lincoln’s run for president. While the story is ostensibly about Lincoln, it doesn’t end with his death (nor is he is not one of the narrators), it continues with the ramifications of the Civil War and the reactions of the country (and more specifically Springfield) to it.

I enjoyed the characters both real and fictional through Horan’s writing and learning more about a historical period about which I thought I knew.

I wanted to read this book because I grew up in Central Illinois near Springfield and Petersburg. I have not been back there very much as an adult but I was familiar with some of the areas. I did not know about the race riot of 1908 so that was an interesting part of history that I was not familiar with.

The story is about Abraham and Mary Lincoln. However, much of the story is through the eyes of an immigrant girl, Ana Ferreira, that works in the Lincoln home and with the children. Ana gets to see the rise of Lincoln going from rumpled lawyer, to President, and his assassination. I also found the story of Mary Lincoln interesting. I did not realize that she battled depression. I also did not realize that the Lincoln's were not very well received in DC. They were kind of considered backward hicks.

I did recommend this book for my mom because she volunteers at the Illinois State Museum. As a volunteer she is asked about the life of the Lincoln's and I think this book is a nice way to learn history with a story that keeps you interested in the book with the immigration story and the home life of the Lincoln's while they were in Springfield.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book for an honest review. #NetGalley #TheHouseOfLincoln #NancyHoran

House of Lincoln is most effective during the passages involving Abraham Lincoln—his candidacy for the Illinois Senate and his debates against Stephen Douglas, his family life, his unlikely candidacy for the U.S. presidency and winning it, his years as president, and his tragic death — and the Civil War (key battles, human toll, and political aftermath), and less so in the years prior or after these events.

Nancy Horan does an excellent job of explaining the circumstances that led to the Civil War and how it unfolded, melding historical and fictional characters to great effect. I was both riveted and horrified in equal measure, a sign of success, in my opinion. I was heartbroken for the fate of the Lincoln family, even though I knew some of it from other readings. So many tragedies in quick succession…

Disclaimer: The publisher provided me with a digital ARC, via Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book obviously has been extensively researched because it provided some interesting accounts of happenings and little known characters during the time of the Civil War. However, although I really enjoy historical novels, this novel often read like a textbook instead of a work of fiction and made me sort of plod my way through it. Nonetheless, I found many interesting tidbits here and there which made this a decent read for me — and because I enjoy reading about Lincoln, having him and Mary be a main point in this novel helped a lot.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

I was impressed with my first reading of Nancy Horan and look forward to exploring her other works. She combines fictional characters with historical details to enhance the read and your learning of the past. The work was engrossing and shares little tidbits of history and trivia. Thanks for the chance to read!

I read the book 'Loving Frank' by this author and really enjoyed this so when I saw that the same author had released a book about Lincoln I was intrigued as Lincoln has always been a historical figure that I wanted to learn more about. 'Team of Rivals' has been sitting on my shelf for YEARS, intimidating me! So I thought that approaching Lincoln in a somewhat fictional way where the author is able to make allowances and fill in the blanks of the story with their own perception of things, I thought this might be an excellent way to build my Lincoln knowledge.

I was actually very much invested in the storyline and found it exceptionally compelling, and I was also very much interested in the new angle that this book was giving on Lincoln's knowledge by choosing to write from the perspective of a young immigrant whose family was forced to leave Portugal and are unmoored & left to figure out how to survive on their own. We also get a few other POVs, those of which consist of a free black man, a minister and a barber, I was really excited to read about it from the angle of black people/immigrants as we all have likely read some book or excerpt or another from the angle of the government that surrounded Lincoln in his time of presidency. Such an enigmatic and major figure in history, one would think that there would be endless amounts of info about not only the white lawmakers and heads of military positions, but also from the many many white men that were angered by what Lincoln was trying to establish, as well as the many black men whose lives would be greatly altered and whose mentalities towards themselves was greatly altered because of Lincoln's goodness. And all this is hunky dory and just what I was hoping for but once I did a little digging I realized that a good hunk of this book was not actually true and had absolutely zero basis in fact and was in fact completely sensationalized or made up, which greatly affected my feelings towards the book.

I do realize that historical fiction is in fact fiction, but I prefer the history to be facts and the characters and their storylines within the history to be the fictional elements. With The House of Lincoln it was really hard to tell as we were reading things from a few unknown perspectives. It also was not centered entirely around Lincoln and followed some of the lives that were or would be touched by Lincoln's message & principles. It was a really interesting angle but it was also not exactly what I was searching for. It was still mostly entertaining, which some might think is a large feat: to make a legal political conversation interesting, but I think Nancy Horan pulled it off.n My only complaint was that it felt in a way almost formulaic, like her books are becoming easy for her to just blow through which is understandable because it has worked for her, but I would have liked to see her reach even further out of her comfort zone. This was a solid 3.75 rounded up to a 4 star book.

This was an interesting historical novel from this acclaimed author. It is narrated by a young immigrant who initially comes to work in the Lincoln household in Springfield IL to look after the children and to help Mary Todd Lincoln. She follows his journey from a traveling lawyer to his presidency and beyond.

This is loosely a story about Abraham Lincoln, his life and presidency. More to the point, it is the story of Ana, an immigrant who, with her family, has arrived from a Portuguese community. I did not realize that Springfield, Illinois had a large community of Portuguese immigrants. These people, along with the African American population, formed the working class of Springfield. Ana is befriended by an elderly woman who pays for her education and helps Ana see the much larger picture. Ana goes to work as a housemaid/child care person in Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's home in Springfield. Growing up, Ana and her African-American friend, Cal, were very close. Cal's family is very heavily involved in the Underground Railroad. Cal realizes she can do so much better in Chicago, and she leaves Springfield. Ana follows the news of the Lincolns throughout the years. Upon Mary Todd Lincoln's return to Springfield, Ana renews her acquaintance with Mary, and attempts to help her out of the morass of her life.

Ms. Horan has done extensive research; the Illinois "Black Laws," which kept out-of-state African Americans from moving to Illinois, racism which continued to be felt in parts of Illinois. She includes facts about the 1908 Springfield race riots, where an elderly member of Cal's family, the Donnegans, was lynched. The book was at times more educational than entertaining, and the movement of the story was somewhat irregular.

Frankly I had a difficult time staying engaged. I found it read more like a textbook or was a more educational read as opposed to entertaining.

“Lincolnphiles” that read everything about Mr. Lincoln might enjoy this more. Certainly there are a few little gems we may not have known about, but those may be the fictional side of this combo fiction/non-fiction novel about the Lincoln’s. .

I found the story about the Portuguese immigrant the most engaging, but even so found the pace irregular.
I sincerely thank the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to peruse this ARC in exchange for my personal and unbiased opinions of this work.

Historical fiction with deeply relatable characters and a strong sense of place. ********************

The House of Lincoln follows the story of Portuguese immigrant, Ana, who comes to work in the Lincoln house as a caregiver and servant. Through the early days of Lincoln’s political career through the death of Mary Todd at an older age, Ana is drawn into their lives while experiencing the growth and racial tensions of Springfield, Illinois. While much of the Lincoln lives is already well-known, the political activism of the supporting characters lends richness to this novel.

I’ve read a few historical fictions involving Lincoln. Despite that I was interested in this book as it gives a new angle of seeing Lincoln family. It’s through the eyes of a young émigré, who with her family, was forced to leave Madeira, Portugal.

1851, Springfield, IL. Fourteen-year-old Ana with her family had to flee their island due to the religious intolerance and hardship they experienced there. In this new land, they quickly saw that with hard work they could achieve a decent living, not possible in Madeira.

Ana gets hired as help to clean and help with little Lincoln boys. She witnesses the rise of Abraham Lincoln to presidency, and his fight for equality.

With her African American friend Cal, Ana witnesses the underground railroad in Springfield. It’s a horrifying experience to leave the abuse of her island, only to witness how her adopted country is torn by slavery.

The narration is through three characters: Ana, Spencer Donnegan, a free black man, minister and barber. With his brother William, they help runaway slaves through the Underground Railroad. And Mary Todd Lincoln.

The story is steeped in historical facts, many I wasn’t familiar with. It was interesting to learn the backstory of Madeira Island and why people were fleeing it, and the little-known Springfield race riot of 1908.

Some of the storytelling is through telling, which I wished was through characters actually experiencing what was being told. We learn a lot of history and what was happening, but we don’t experience much of characters experiencing their stories.

Thanks @netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy! This is a history of Abraham Lincoln and his family, told from the perspective of Ana, who works in his home. Ana's family has fled bad conditions in Portugal, and if figuring out life in the United States. it is a very volatile time politically, and obviously Lincoln and his family are right in the middle of it. There is a lot of coverage of the racism that was rampant even in Illinois at this time, showing it wasn't only the south. You learn about Lincoln and his family, especially Mary Todd Lincoln, and the imagined marital relationship. I enjoyed this historical fiction, and the different perspective. #thehouseoflincoln #nancyhoran #historicalfiction #abrahamlincoln #netgalley #bookstagram #booklover #reader #bookblog #lovetoread #fictionreader #bookreview #bookrecommendation #readersofinstagram #bookloversofinstagram #takeapagefrommybook #readallthebooks #booksbooksbooks

Good read, but maybe a bit too much of the political stuff for me. It is very evident author did an amazing amount of research for this book.

Thank you to #Sourcebooks and #NetGalley for providing this #ARC Advance Reading Copy. Expected publication date is June 6, 2023.

THE HOUSE OF LINCOLN is an engrossing historical fiction novel that delves into the complex and tumultuous life of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. The novel follows Lincoln's life from his humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to his rise to prominence as a politician and leader during the American Civil War. The book explores both his triumphs and struggles as he navigates the challenges of his time.

A very interesting book in which we learn about Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln through the eyes of a young immigrant girl.
Through this story told by Ana, over the course of her life, we learn things about the Lincolns and various townspeople, how it was to live through this time of the Civil War,
the effects of the war, the lives lost and the lives forever changed.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. Happy reading!