"The American Heiress" Book Review by J. R.

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Book Club Meeting on June 27, 2012

The basic story is of an immensely wealthy American young lady who marries an English duke, and the trials of fitting in with the British aristocracy. The 18-year-old Cora Cash is the wealthiest heiress in the U.S., and her social climbing mother wants to parlay that wealth into a title for her only child.

Cora is secretly infatuated with a childhood friend, Teddy, who is from old money. His mother considers Cora Cash unsuitable for her family, but Cora pleads with Teddy to run away with her. Teddy lets his fear rule the moment, and he declines. So off goes Cora to England, where her mother has paid for them to be introduced into British high society.

Quite by accident, Cora meets Ivo Maltravers, an eligible duke. Within a week the duke proposes for her vast fortune, which he needs to prop up his crumbling and bankrupt estate. Cora finds that her status as a duchess does not automatically translate into social acceptance from her husband's circle.

Ivo's former lover Charlotte feigns friendship, only to set a trap for Cora.  We felt that Ivo should have understood the risk, yet he didn't stop his new wife or protect her from Charlotte's plotting. Throughout the book, we are never sure whether their affair is over or not.

Cora's maid Bertha is a sub story of a biracial servant who finds she is accepted much more in Britain than she ever was in America. But this story line fizzled out and never really drew us in to Bertha's mind and her world. We found some scenes with the maid to be unbelievable, particularly the idea that Cora would ask her for a kissing lesson.

Other characters and story lines appear and then are dropped, for example, when Cora's mother is badly burned. This would seem to be a major event, but it doesn't affect Mrs. Cash in the least, other than she orders hats with a side veil to hide the burned area. In general, we all agreed that we didn't find the characters compelling and felt we didn't get to know any of them well.

After a year of marriage, and while entertaining the Prince of Wales, Charlotte's husband makes a scene by loudly accusing Charlotte and Ivo of having an affair. The next morning, all the houseguests behave as if nothing happened, and continue on with their planned bicycle outing and picnic. But Cora decides to leave Ivo and run off with Teddy, who just happens to be visiting.

When Ivo is tipped off, he rushes to stop Cora, and takes her to a cliff overlooking the sea to deny the affair and make a heartfelt confession of his love for her. The author has stated that she was of two minds while writing this chapter. Should Cora leave with Teddy, or stay and make a life with Ivo?

Our group found the duke's explanations to be self serving and probably untrue. We devised our own alternate ending for Cora: that Ivo should lose his balance and fall off the cliff to his death (perhaps by accident or perhaps with a gentle shove from Cora.) This would leave Cora as duchess with a huge estate, social status, all her money, and the freedom to marry Teddy.