First Daughter

by

Marlie Parker Wasserman

Compelling fictional story of an imagined kidnapping of Grover and Frances Cleveland’s eldest daughter, Ruth.

First Daughter by Marlie Parker Wasserman is a compelling fictional account of the imagined kidnapping of President Grover Cleveland’s eldest daughter, three-year-old Ruth. Occurring during Frances Cleveland’s confinement in the aftermath of the birth of her third child, daughter Marion, Frances feels immense helplessness as the woman who had briefly but successfully removed Ruth from their summer home remained at large and unidentified; while her husband, the President, seemingly moved on, his thoughts returning to issues of state. 

Told from multiple viewpoints, especially those of the frantic Frances Cleveland and a distant domestic, Mary Brinski, the story is rich in the details of the time and thick with the rising tension that the unknown kidnapper would soon try again. Frances is the frightened mother, helpless to pursue her own ideas of who is behind the crime, as she slowly recuperates from her recent and difficult childbirth. The constant dismissal of her ideas was hard to stomach in this day and age. 

Mary Brinski, a domestic in the service of a wealthy Pontiac, Michigan, family, has entirely different struggles: a missing common-law husband and the lack of funds and opportunity to search for him. Their converging stories make for compelling, tense, and ultimately satisfying reading. 

I recommend FIRST DAUGHTER to readers of historical fiction. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advance Review Copy from the author through Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours.