From my Shelf to Yours

I haven’t listened to the radio in months. Like literally, it’s been Christmastime at least since my car radio was tuned to a radio station and played music. I need to call Sirius and try to cancel again, just to see what kind of deal they’ll give me.

But I do have a reason for not listening to the radio. I’ve been “reading” while driving. The safe way, via audio books, obviously. I only physically read when I’m the passenger, I promise. I have blogged about this before, but I just finished a book a little over a week ago that I had been listening to for a very long time.

Whether you are an audiobook listener, Kindle reader, or prefer to take your literature in its purest form, I thought I would pass along a recommendation. If you like historical fiction, romance, or biographies, then I really think you might enjoy America’s First Daughter by Laura Kamoie and Stephanie Dray.

image via amazon.com

This novel features the main character of Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph, the eldest daughter of our third president, Thomas Jefferson. The story begins when she is a young girl and closes much later in her life. What was amazing to me was the amount of research done for this “novel.” Everything in it is based on Jefferson’s letters—and he wrote over 20,000 in his lifetime! We follow Patsy through the end of the American Revolution to Paris, where her father helped build the foundations of the first French Revolution, back to Virginia to Monticello, and then to the White House as her father’s hostess. Through the novel, you can really see how Jefferson’s daughter shaped so much history—she was his closest companion after the death of his wife. It gave me a much better understanding of someone I had no knowledge of, other than the fact that she existed. The novel also touches on Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings and other aspects of his mistress’s life of which I was not aware.

The audio book is over 23 hours long—insane!—and there were many times when I wished I had a paper copy to flip back in or recheck dates at the beginning of chapters and such, but it was a good audio version.

Happy reading, folks!

And, as always, stay gold.