A Lantern in Her Hand - mini review
My mini review for "A Lantern in Her Hand" by Bess Streeter Aldrich, book three for my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2025!
Hello, hello!
In today’s post to you all I will be sharing my review for one of the books I read for my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2025 held over at The Intrepid Reader & Baker.
I would recommend this book to fans of the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls, as the settings and lifestyle were similar. I look forward to reading more books by Bess Streeter Aldrich in the future! 😊
Feel free to ❤️ this post and leave a comment below as I always love to hear your thoughts!
Happy reading,
Isabella Ann x
A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
“She pulled the silken cord and the drape parted. Behind the soft folds there hung a huge painting in a wide dull gold frame,—the painting of a lovely lady in velvet draperies, her reddish-brown hair curling over her shoulder, and a string of pearls at her neck. A hat with a sweeping plume was in one hand,—held by long slender fingers that tapered at the ends. "My, my, Kathie, tears on your wedding day. Whatever will you think? How selfish of me,—I'm that ashamed! But when I saw... when I saw the lovely lady that I used to dream about... it just came over me... in s sort of wave... all the wonderful things I planned to do when I was younger... and never did."
-Bess Streeter Aldrich
About:
In this story we follow the life of Abbie Mackenzie, a young girl who dreams of one day becoming a fine singer and an aristocratic lady like her Grandmother before her. But when Abbie’s dreams change, she finds herself turning away from her old aspirations of a comfortable life in the bright city, to marrying Will Deal and moving out to the Nebraska plains to tend the wild landscape and raise a family on their new homestead.
A story about sacrifice, love, loss and the hardships Abbie and her family faced as they started the work of taming the prairie.
“But even work could take upon itself a mask of fun. One could pretend, when threading the wicks into candle moulds, that one was stringing pearls accidentally broken at the ball, —that the long walk through the hazel-bush to the schoolhouse was between rows of admiring spectators who, instead of a mere rustling in the wind, were whispering, "There she goes, —there goes Abbie Mackenzie, the singer.”
-Bess Streeter Aldrich
My thoughts:
Wow, this book was such a lovely, heartwarming read about a girl’s journey through life. When I first started to write this book review, I wasn’t sure where to start at all! The amount of quotes and passages I gathered from this book was just crazy, as Bess Streeter Aldrich’s way of writing was just beautiful... very poetical and wistful.
Set in the late 1800s, I enjoyed that the story followed Abbie Deal all through her life, from when she was a young child, to a bride, to a mother and then a Grandmother. It was a very thoughtful book about life, family and how time slips away from you like pearls on a string. It made me think about my life, and how you have to live in every moment!
At first, I felt sad for Abbie Deal when I was reading about all of the hardships she and her family had to face on the prairie, the days when it wouldn’t rain, the days when their harvests failed or even the small things she had to give up so she could raise her children. But throughout the novel, you realise that life won’t be how you always dreamed it would be when you were younger and sometimes life can be better, filled with loving friends and family, even if you didn’t follow your first dreams.
“In all these years Abbie Deal had not done anything with her voice, and she had not painted. But as every good mother lives again in her children, her personal disappointments were assuaged by Isabelle giving great promise in her music, and Margaret improving in every canvas she did. So Abbie felt that the children were doing the things she had so deeply wanted to do.”
-Bess Streeter Aldrich
I will share one last quote with you all! 🥰
“How did they do it, she wondered? How did those writers you loved make you live in their stories? How did their people move across the pages like flesh and blood friends? How could they bring tears to your eyes and laughter to your lips? How could the winds sweep through their books so that you heard its endless rushing? How could the prairie grass blow for them so that you saw it wave and ripple? How could the Mayflowers and the honey-locusts drip their fragrance for them, so that you smelled it across the years? She did not know.”
-Bess Streeter Aldrich
3/5 for my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2025, you can check out the full list of books here:
Thanks for sharing this review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. It does sound very interesting!
I've always meant to read this classic frontier story! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Constance