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    Reliance, Illinois
    Reliance, Illinois
    Reliance, Illinois
    Audiobook11 hours

    Reliance, Illinois

    Written by Mary Volmer

    Narrated by Sandy Rustin

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Reliance, Illinois tells the story of a young woman faced with choices that will alter the course of her own future, and offers a brilliant window into American life during a period of tumultuous change. Illinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings, and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there. When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother's younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. Deeply injured by her mother's deceptions, Madelyn soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner, prodigal daughter of the town's founder. Miss Rose is a suffragette and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte. Madelyn, though, wants to feel beautiful and loved, and she pins her hopes on William Stark, a young photographer and haunted Civil War veteran. Reliance, Illinois tells the story of a young woman faced with choices that will alter the course of her own future, and offers a brilliant window into American life during a period of tumultuous change.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 10, 2016
    ISBN9781501919763
    Author

    Mary Volmer

    Mary Volmer was born in Grass Valley, California and lives in the San Francisco Bay area. She studied at Saint Mary’s College, California where she is presently lecturing. She also completed a Masters degree at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. This is her first novel.

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    Reviews for Reliance, Illinois

    4/5

    5 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I loved this story of a girl born with a "port wine stain" on her face. Destined never to be seen as a beauty, she and her mother flee to a town on the Mississippi River in the turbulent post-Civil War years. Her mother makes lace but no veil can shield Madelyn from stares and whispers. Madelyn finds comfort of a sort in service to the town's leading lady, a "suffragette" who secretly furnishes birth control to the town's women, when they need it. And Madelyn falls in love for the first time, with handsome, haunted William, a photographer who appears and disappears like one of his photographs developing in a dark room.
    • 4/5
      Loved this book. Excellent writing, with language and descriptions (the river, the smell of snow in the air, food, clothing) that still resonate. Set in 1870s in a fictional town about where Grafton is, just below the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, this is the story of a young girl, Maddy, and her mother as they struggle to survive in a society and economic system that has no place for women outside a wealthy marriage. The necessary deceptions that people use, and Maddy's need to find the truth, propel the story along. The historical backdrop, including a visit from Sam Clemens and figures from the women's suffrage movement are all accurate and make this a richly textured story. It left me with a better understanding of the challenges women faced in that time and place, and a deeper and more nuanced consideration of why people lie or withhold information, and the power of love, the more nuanced relationship of love and truth. Highly recommended.