Mrs Lincoln - Softcover

"...this epic drama exerts an exceptional pull... an impressive, engrossing and moving piece of historical imagining and characterisation."
- Holly Kyte, The Sunday Telegraph

"...a tender and thoughtful portrait of a 19th century woman severely misunderstood... Mrs Lincoln unfolds with plenty to inspire and is all the more poignant for a timely arrival."
- Sarah Emily Miano, The Times

"I could not put Mary down and as I read it, I wept. I cannot recommend a book more. Mary is a very powerful novel."
- Pat Schroeder, President of the Association of American Publishers

"Mary is one of those rare books that turns the reader into an admiring fan of both the author and her subject. You feel a compulsion to urge others to read it...Newman gives Mary a riveting voice...after reading Mary, you'll view stout little Mrs. Lincoln - and her 19th-century sisters - in a new, more respectful light."
- USA Today

"...a gripping tale of scandal, war, intrigue, and seances...for sheer page-turning fun, Mary is perfect."
- San Francisco Magazine

"...a moving story of former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, an intelligent and unconventional woman." - Washington Woman

"An old-fashioned pleasure to read - its 700 pages fly by more easily than those in novels a third its length...[views] the sweep of an extraordinary life, one that Newman manages to enliven with a verve that might have pleased, as well as appalled, Mary herself."
- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"...thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable...Mary is not only a fascinating read, but also a touching love story."
- Chicago Sun-Times

"Mary presents a challenge to any historical novelist. Newman makes a good choice in telling the story through Mary's eyes and drawing readers into her perspective...readers looking for a vivid, mostly flattering account of [Lincoln's] once-notorious spouse, whose letters are becoming more read, will not be disappointed - and those who simply come upon it will be happily surprised."
--Publishers Weekly

(May 20th)
Mrs Mary Lincoln admitted today from Chicago Age 56 Widow of ex-President Lincoln declared insane by the Cook County Court May 19th 1875.

Patient Progress Reports for Bellevue Place Sanatorium.

Incarcerated in an insane asylum after committal proceedings instigated by her own son, Mary Lincoln resolves to tell her own story in order to preserve and to prove her own sanity. Details of her first encounters with Abraham Lincoln, their courtship, marriage and troubled relationship are interspersed with disturbing accounts of the treatment and behaviour of the women around her as she fights to be released from the sanatorium.