The Sinners All Bow is a fun, interesting true crime story looking at Puritan America and the inspiration for an American classic: The Scarlet Letter.

Meticulously researched, but written very accessibly. Another great story from a fantastic voice in true crime.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Kate Winkler Dawson for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for The Sinners All Bow coming out January 7, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author. I was intrigued by the backstory. I love the Scarlet Letter. I wasn’t familiar with the Victorian writer Williams or Sarah Cornell. So it was interesting learning about that. The beginning of the book was a little slow. I think there’s a lot of historical backstory to get through. I enjoyed the true crime feel of the book. It was a really interesting and sad story. I would read more books by this author.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys true crime and literature!

Kate Winkler Dawson is an auto-read author for me. I love everything she has written. I especially love the way she always manages to find a topic that I know little about but am genuinely interested in. Finding both is fairly rare.

The Sinners All Bow uncovers the true story that was used for the basis of Hester Prym in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlett Letter. Sarah Maria Cornell is found dead in a small New England town and there are so many questions as to how and why.

True to her style, Dawson does a great job driving the narrative of this story forward while also including the technological details of the time period and the history. A quick-paced read with a lot of new information for the reader, this would be an excellent recommendation for true crime fans or someone who wants to dig a little deeper into a super well known character in the English canon.

A true crime case that influenced a famous book and movies. Even if you have not read the book or seen the movie, I am sure most people have heard of The Scarlett Letter and Hester Prynne. "On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town." After Sarah was found dead, her character and reputation came under the microscope, especially after the community found out she was pregnant out of wedlock and with a married man's baby. A preacher was accused of the murder and instead of him being on trial, Sarah Cornell was the one who stood trial. Her reputation was dragged through the mud and she was not able to defend herself. All in all this was a good book and was an interesting read.

This will likely be overlooked in the true crime genre, unless book talked; however, it will make an excellent pairing with The Scarlet Letter and add to ongoing political discourse.

The best fictional literature is often rooted in real life scenarios and cases. In the case of the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne came across the case of Sarah Maria Cornell. Cornell was found hanging and was initially ruled a suicide. Later, a court case would call into doubt whether it was suicide or murder. The similarities between Cornell and Hester Prynne does not stop there, but I don't want to give away too much.

Kate Winkler Dawson takes on Cornell's case in her book The Sinners All Bow. She actually takes on quite a bit more. Dawson also discusses her "co-author's" own biases as she attempts to solve the question of murder or suicide. Yes, co-author is in quotes and I won't say why but you find out in the introduction. Dawson also looks at the rise of Methodism (it's important) and the lives of women in the early 1800s. It's a lot, but Dawson handles it all well.

I would tell readers that the beginning of the book is a bit slow. Dawson has to set up her own narrative mechanism, describe the times her characters live in, and then discuss forensics. The one criticism I have is that it really slows down the story in the beginning. However, once it is all set up and Dawson can focus fully on Cornell's story, the book flies by. Historical true crime always requires more setup than a traditional true crime tome. In this case, Dawson's book is worth the wait to get to the meat of the story.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Putnam Books.)

Very interesting to read true crime that took place in the 1800s. Kudos for the investigative journalism that went into this book. It was very intriguing to read about.
If you like history and true crime then this is the book for you.

I'm a fan of the author, and I listen to the podcast she has with Paul Holes, Buried Bones. Ms. Winkler Dawson is thorough, and it comes through in this book. So many people focus on current day, but Kate has a talent for focusing on history. It's a solid read, and I enjoyed it a great deal.

Thank you to Penguin Group and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

#KateWinklerDawson #TheSinnersAllBow #NetGalley #PenguinGroup

This book is exactly what it claims to be. Kate Winkler Dawson brings a crime from the 1800s and uses modern journalism to help piece it all together. And this time she's doing it with help from another author who wrote a book about this crime...in the 1800s.

The concept is very interesting, how Dawson is taking that original book and filling in all the gaps and bringing the story into the modern era. I've listened to quite a bit of Dawson's podcasts and love her way of story telling. This is the first of her books that I've read and it definitely reads like a season of Tenfold More Wicked. There's even spots that she gets help from her co-host on another podcast, Paul Holes (and it's always a joy to hear his take on things). However there are times that the way she brings in the older book feels like a book report and it gets a little long winded. But it's also just a part of investigating and being a journalist, it does take you out of the main story a little though.

Overall this is a great historical true crime, heavy on investigative journalism book. Dawson is so curious about all parts of the crime and the world that it took place in, and she wants to make it all come together for the reader. If you like true crime or history, this is definitely a book for you. I personally would enjoy it more as an audiobook, there's lots of people to follow at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for providing an ARC for me to read.
This was a solid and interesting read. The interest Kate Winkler Dawson’s has in the case is obvious in the care and detail; not many books come with a bibliography. The contrast between the modern and contemporary investigations was very interesting and educational. Sometimes because of the dual perspectives, we go over information multiple times which becomes a little tedious; that was the only real fault. My attention span could only take so many analyses of the knot used. However, I think that’s partially part and parcel with the narration style. Speaking of, both investigators had a strong voice and their sections were equally engaging. Catharine was well represented and her contributions acknowledged, even as her flaws were addressed

I've been out of the true crime reading game fir a while now, but this one pulled me right back in. I loved how Kate used Catharine as a legitimate co-author, while still calling out her faults. The only thing I would say is this book is definitely a good true crime starter book if a reader has never read/listened to/watched true crime before. As someone who has, I got a little bogged down at times/skipped a bit with the explanations of moder investigative work. These sections would certainly be helpful for a new reader, but for someone who already knows a lot about how the investigative process works, it was a little much. Overall, phenomenal writing, I really enjoyed it. Off to go reread the Scarlet Letter!

The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne by Kate Winkler Dawson
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for providing an eARC for me to read. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Kate Winkler Dawson’s passion for the topic is obvious in the amount of research that was done to complete this book. It seems that no stone was left unturned in the attempt to confirm if Sarah Maria Cornell was murdered and who the murderer was. The comparisons between modern investigative techniques and the ones used to investigate the death of Sarah Maria Cornell were fascinating and well done. I also appreciated the dual perspective of having two authors, one contemporary of the murder and one with the benefit of modern technology and hindsight.

It was a little repetitive with some of the facts of the case and a few of the descriptions slowed me down in my reading but overall the pace was good and the story moved along nicely. If you are interested in history, true crime, and shows like Law and Order: SVU, I highly recommend giving this book a try when it is released.

The title says it all. In The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne, Kate Winkler Dawson, a well-known true crime historian, collaborates with the first American true crime author on a case that (may have) inspired the classic novel The Scarlet Letter. The twist is that the other author has been dead for over 150 years. This element makes this narrative nonfiction a unique investigation into an almost forgotten case.

Since this is about a mystery I will avoid going into details. The victim was a woman named Sarah Maria Cornell who died in 1832, and the mystery is whether her death was a murder or a suicide. Soon after her death, a writer named Catherine Read Arnold Williams wrote a book about this case, the first American true crime narrative, now almost lost to time. But thanks to Winkler Dawson, this has been brought out of the shadows and is used as the foundation for reexamining the case, while detailing Catherine’s and Sarah’s lives. This is an interesting narrative device: Catherine becomes another element in this true story, whose prejudices and opinions are reflective of the time, propelling Winkler Dawson to not only examine the case but also Catherine’s angle on all the clues. She also brings in modern forensic experts for additional help on trying to solve the mystery.

The history of early 1800s America is not something I knew much about. It was fascinating to learn about the clash between Congregationalists and Methodists, the Industrial Revolution, women working in factories for the first time, and how the justice system worked. Since I am a huge history buff this was eye-opening, but for a “true crime” fan this could be viewed as less interesting, but I would encourage readers to pay attention to these details because they are integral to the tale.

This multilayered narrative examines journalism, true crime and refocusing on victims, feminism, misogyny, early American history and society, as well as highlighting the first true crime book written in the US and its reverberations in American culture, especially since Nathaniel Hawthorne might have been inspired to write The Scarlet Letter by this tragic case. I would think many people know the fictional character Hester Prynne but very few have heard of Sarah Cornell’s life and death, and Winkler Dawson gives her back her history thoughtfully and respectfully. This book is an important addition to the true crime genre.

True crime is not my genre, generally, but the link to the Scarlet Letter got my attention and I wanted to give this a try.

Dawson unearths a notorious murder trial from Fall River MA in 1833 and reexamines the court proceedings, the evidence, and the lives of victim and accused. She brings in a forensics expert to review the testimony related to physical evidence, and a handwriting expert to evaluate relevant letters. In addition, she reviews the statements and attitudes of Catharine Williams, who wrote a book about the case while it was happening, which is credited as being the first 'true crime' book.
In the process, she discusses in heartbreaking detail the first-ever blame-the-victim defense, in which defense attorneys marshalled dozens of witnesses to testify under oath (apparently falsely) to the extremely bad character of Sarah Cornell. We are fortunate that those kinds of things are becoming less permissible today in courts of law.

I agree with her conclusions, which I won't spoil here but are not a surprise given the evidence. She also ends up agreeing with Williams despite her biases and fudging of evidence. While I found the discussion of 19th century Methodism rather uninteresting, Dawson is making a case that religious prejudice was involved and that the witnesses were gathered to malign the victim from people who would see defending a minister as defending their religious choice; this case is totally circumstantial, I might add.

My problems with the book come from the Scarlet Letter tie-in. I have read that book two or three times, although it's been fifteen years or so since my last reading, and I do not see that the parallels are that strong. Evidently Hawthorne was interested in the Cornell case, and got the germ of his idea for his book from it. That seems to be as far as it goes, and I found the repeated attempts to liken Cornell and Hester Prynne unconvincing. I do not see Arthur Dimmesdale and Ephraim Avery as similar characters in any way. Ephraim Avery was an actual rapist who abused his authority over his female congregants, and was also married, while I never felt that Dimmesdale was anything worse than weak - Hester came to him when she was vulnerable, but in the end I felt that they actually cared for one another, he did not appear to be manipulating her to protect himself, and he was burdened with feelings of guilt that appear never to have crossed Avery's mind. Not to mention he would never have actually killed Hester. This totally did not work for me.

There was one place where I got the feeling Dawson was mixing Congregational and Episcopal adherents or equating them; maybe they were both 'establishment' religions in 19th century New England, but they were not the same thing. Evidently Catharine Williams was Episcopalian and the economic elite who owned the mills were Congregational, at least according to this book, but that does not mean their attitudes and interests would have been perfectly aligned. If you're going to repeatedly throw those terms around, you should make clear what you mean and why it matters.

On the whole, this book will be interesting to true-crime history buffs, but I hope people who do not know The Scarlet Letter do not assume these two stories are the same.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy of this book. Hope they give it one more good copyedit!