The Celestial Wife
A Novel
by Leslie Howard
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Pub Date Apr 09 2024 | Archive Date Apr 09 2024
Simon & Schuster Canada | Simon & Schuster
Description
Keep sweet no matter what, for this is the way to be lifted up
Keep sweet with every breath, for it is a matter of life or death
1964. Fifteen-year-old Daisy Shoemaker dreams of life beyond her small, isolated fundamentalist Mormon community of Redemption on the Canada—US border—despite Bishop Thorsen’s warning that the outside world is full of sin. According to the Principle, the only way to enter the celestial kingdom is through plural marriage. While the boys are taught to work in the lucrative sawmill that supports their enclave, Daisy and her best friend, Brighten, are instructed to keep sweet and wait for Placement—the day the bishop will choose a husband for them. But Daisy wants to be more than a sister-wife and a mother. So when she is placed with a man forty years her senior, she makes the daring decision to flee Redemption.
Years later, Daisy has a job and a group of trustworthy friends. Emboldened by the ideas of the feminist and counterculture movements, she is freer than she has ever been…until Brighten reaches out with a cry for help and Daisy’s past comes hurtling back. But to save the women she left behind, Daisy must risk her newfound independence and return to Redemption, where hellfire surely awaits.
For readers of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Ami McKay’s The Virgin Cure comes an arresting coming-of-age novel about a fearless young girl’s fight for freedom at a time of great historic change.
Advance Praise
“Shedding light onto one of Canada’s most shadowed truths, Leslie Howard’s insightful research takes us on a heart-wrenching and compelling journey from behind the curtain of an infamous polygamous cult into a hard-won life of unimaginable freedom for one brave woman.” -Genevieve Graham, #1 bestselling author of The Forgotten Home Child
“An engaging book about a spunky young protagonist who finds herself catapulted out of the confines and conformity of a fundamentalist community into the drugs, sex and rock and roll of the 1960s. Howard has a natural gift for time, place, and setting and her pacing and suspense is propulsive.” -Roberta Rich, #1 bestselling author of The Jazz Club Spy
Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 9781982182410 |
| PRICE | CA$13.99 (CAD) |
| PAGES | 368 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Brandy C, Reviewer
Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for a copy of this book. I am interesting in the topic in this book so
It was very interesting to me. I loved that it was set in BC and i was able to connect with the main character and her movements and journey throughout this book.
Rhonda T, Reviewer
This was my very first ARC (which I’m still very excited about 😂) and I’m happy to say I was totally captivated by it.
The Celestial Wife was a fictional story (inspired by true events) about a young girl, Daisy Shoemaker, who lives in a polygamous cult called Redemption in the 1960’s.
Daisy is 15 years old. She is eagerly awaiting her “Placement” when she will be told who she is to marry. She dreams of marrying a boy named Tobias, but soon finds out she is set to be another wife to a man who is much older than her.
Daisy, who has mostly followed the rules of her upbringing thus far starts to see the reality of her situation. She begins to question the Bishop’s intentions, she doesn’t want to live as a plural wife, she wants to be able to make her own decisions in her life.
So she decides to run.
This is where the story really hooked me in. Daisy runs away from Redemption and finds herself living amongst people she has been taught to fear, but her past isn’t ready to let her go just yet…
If you’re anything like me, this book will probably enlighten and infuriate you in equal parts. This is set to be released April 9, 2024 and I highly recommend checking it out.
Thank you so much @simonschusterca for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review!
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