Ann H. Gabhart

Dear Readers,

Does any of this sound familiar?  Political parties accusing each other of destroying the country, worry about immigrants and how they are taking jobs from "real" Americans, news medias taking sides and trying to further the way of their own pet projects.  They all sound like headlines and activities from modern times.  They are actually the setting for Anne Gabhart's new book, Words Spoken True. 

The book is set in Louisville in 1855.  The city was in the midst of a struggle between the Irish Catholics and those that saw themselves as the "native" Americans because they were born here.  The Know Nothings (what a great political party name) saw the Catholics and immigrants in general as a threat to the real way of life in America. They thought the immigrants were bringing the beliefs etc. from their original countries here and were unwilling to change to fit the mold.

Adriene only wants to help run her father's paper.  She was practically raised at the newspaper office and loves everything that has to do with getting a paper out.  The only problem is she is a woman, and being a woman reporter is unheard of and her father just wants her to marry well and raise a family. 

Blake wants to start over and a chance to be the editor of a failing paper in Louisville looks like the opportunity he has been looking for.  The problem is, the owner of his paper wants him to take out the Tribune. Now that he has met Adriane, he is not sure he still wants to do whatever it takes to beat them to the story.   

When Irish girls start turning up dead, the city gets more and more on edge.  The police department doesn’t seem to be interested in solving the mystery; after all they are not ladies and probably deserved it.  But it leads to one more stick in the tinder box of the city until it all explodes on August 6. 

Now don’t panic, that information is at the front of the book and is really part of history.  On August 6^th, 22 people were killed in the riots that have become known as Bloody Monday. I guess that is part of why I really do like this book.  It is an interesting mixture of history and fiction.  Ann is very good at mixing the two.

This is one of those books that it was just fun to read.  It is about a time in USA history that I haven't read that much about.  It is amazing to me how many parallels there were between modern news stories and the ones from this era.   I guess it just goes to show, history does repeat itself. 

I really like Ann’s books.  She writes these books that have lots of history in them without it sounding like a history book.  Her characters are easy to love or hate, depending on who they are.   She doesn’t always include a mystery, but I really do like her rich storylines.