Gilded

Rating:
Summary: Eyes glued to the pages
Review: BE WARNED that once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. It's a great book!

Rating:
Summary: Sad Story
Review: Catherine Karp is a talented writer. I was hooked at the beginning of the book and had to read more to find out what was happening.

A truly realistic view of the feelings of a physically abused wife in fictional form.
Unfortunately nothing has changed about it today. In the novel I was glad to read a happy ending.

I also recommend reading Geneva's Hope and Smitten (historical romance) by Payton Lee. Casey's Haven and Shattered Deceptions (Contemporary Romance) by Autumn McCullah. And Scifi romance Birth:Harmonic Saga by Pat Clancy.

Rating:
Summary: "Gilded" will please readers of many different genres
Review: Ingeniously scripted and well polished, "Gilded" is a novel that will appeal to readers who favor widely differing genres. The book vividly evokes a raucous chain of events in the summer of 1897 which changed lives forever in the Massachusetts town of Hollybrook. Emma is the unhappy young wife of Mayor Philip Brandenberg, a hypocritical domestic tyrant whose snobbery belies his own humble origin. Philip has definite ideas about how wives should behave towards husbands: he expects nothing less than childlike submission and obedience. Five years into their marriage, Emma is already chafing at the emptiness of her home life but despairs of any improvement. Quite a few of her friends in Hollybrook suffer from similar marital boredom, yet share the hopelessness of their generation at a time when divorce was nearly impossible and highly scandalous.

Hollybrook's stuffy atmosphere is stirred up by the arrival of Freddie Ash, an enterprising young hatmaker who's as clever as he is handsome. Illicit liasons with Freddie in the workshop behind his store provide relief from connubial dreariness for several of Hollybrook's women, and being seen wearing one of Freddie's hats becomes a provocative badge of liberation for those women in the know. Yet charming as Freddie is, Emma is repulsed by his serial seduction of her friends and the meaningless sex that ensues: she yearns instead for Hal, the handsome, rough-cut young gardener who mows the Brandenbergs' lawn once a week. Emma's reserve intrigues Freddie, who tries to convince her that mere promiscuity does not mean he's just the jaded lecher she treats him as. But when her home life worsens and Philip's behavior takes a turn for the brutal, Philip's position as Mayor leads him into direct confrontation with Freddie over Freddie's immoral behavior - a confrontation that will have lasting and surprising consequences for everyone involved.

Gilded is a skilfully written look at some of the domestic unhappiness kept hidden by the stifling moral hypocrisy and religious strictures of the Victorian Age. Its characters are lively and well-drawn, and Karp excels at exploring Emma's inner conflict and anguish, making her a real woman we can empathize with. Freddie is a strong character I think a lot of men will identify with - out to have fun, but open to something more meaningful if the right woman comes along. Straightforward dialogue and clever plotting add to the appeal of this story of one woman's determination to do whatever it took to better her life.

Rating:
Summary: Materfully recreates the romance of the era
Review: Married to the Hollybrook mayor, Emma Brandenberg has everything she could
possibly want--a lovely home, the latest fashions, and a life of social
prominence. Or does she? Secrets are tucked away and hidden behind the
public Victorian persona. Forced to abandon her college education upon
becoming Philip's wife, Emma is stifled in her gilded cage. Her only
outlet is a close circle of friends, but they have secrets of their own.

The quiet New England town is transformed when Ash's Fine Parisian
Millinery sets up for business. The hatmaker's shop, along with the
handsome proprietor, Freddie Ash, becomes the rage of the town. Formerly
bored ladies of leisure leave the hat shop with contented smiles upon
their faces. But Freddie's scandalous behavior is a diversion for the real
secret hidden beneath Victorian propriety. The ever popular mayor abuses
his wife.

During a time when there was nowhere to seek shelter, Emma turns to
Freddie in her darkest moments. Although humanly flawed, Freddie guides
Emma along the path to independence and love. GILDED is about manipulation
and spousal abuse, as well as the frightening terrors that go with it. It
is also about strength and courage, yet it subtly reminds us that
preceding the peak of the suffrage movement, brave women fought for rights
that present day women often take for granted.

Karp masterfully recreates the romance of the era through tearooms, the
first electric light bulbs, and the horseless carriage, while creating a
whirlwind plot that keeps readers guessing until the end. I highly
recommend this book to romantics and historical fiction fans.

Rating:
Summary: Gilded
Review: Those who begin reading "Gilded" by Catherine Karp will find themselves unable to put it down. This harrowing story of an abused woman in 1890's New England rivets the attention and moves the heart. The story centers on a hat shop offering gorgeous creations for otherwise restricted and lonley women to wear upon their heads. The ponderous hats, laden with plumes, flowers, bows and laces help to brighten loveless marriages and dreary lives. Eventually, the hats become a symbol, masterfully used by the author, of women's social and sexual emancipation.
"Gilded" is a must read for those who love the Victorian and Edwardian Eras and are concerned with the condition of women at that time.

Rating:
Summary: Gilded
Review: Those who begin reading "Gilded" by Catherine Karp will find themselves unable to put it down. This harrowing story of an abused woman in 1890's New England rivets the attention and moves the heart. The story centers on a hat shop offering gorgeous creations for otherwise restricted and lonley women to wear upon their heads. The ponderous hats, laden with plumes, flowers, bows and laces help to brighten loveless marriages and dreary lives. Eventually, the hats become a symbol, masterfully used by the author, of women's social and sexual emancipation.
"Gilded" is a must read for those who love the Victorian and Edwardian Eras and are concerned with the condition of women at that time.

Rating:
Summary: An exciting, emotional, reaching novel
Review: Winner of the Hollywood Discovery Award, Catherine Karp's Gilded is an superbly written and highly recommended novel set in 1890's America. Emma Brandenberg is struggling against her abusive husband Philip and a Massachusetts culture that perceives women to be subject to men and incapable of governing their own lives or make their own life-choices. The movement for women's liberation and its intersection with the fate of one woman trapped in a turbulent and unhappy marriage from the substance of an exciting, emotional, reaching novel carrying a message that is as dramatically relevant today as were the events that background the story more than 100 years ago.