I really enjoyed this book! It was a very quick read for me and that's what I liked most about it. The author, Marie Benedict, did a really good job of moving this story along which really kept me engaged and interested throughout. From the beginning, her description of "Clara's" journey from Ireland and how she stumbled upon the lady maid's role at the Carnegie household was full of twists and turns and was actually really fun to read. Benedict was able to paint a clear picture without boring the readers with minute, unnecessary details. She goes on to describe Clara's unique up and down relationship with Andrew that also kept me intrigued until the end. Speaking of the ending, I thought it was done very well as it gave me the closure that I was looking for. Fans of the PBS series, Downton Abbey, will devour this novel!

I have heard of the Andrew Carnegie story before but this title puts a different spin on how he became the iron magnate as well as the financier of many things. While this is indeed historical fiction, I greatly enjoyed the way that facts were interwoven with the fictional interpersonal relations.

This is a story about a maid falling in love with Andrew Carnegie and a special relationship they had. Except, I didn't feel this was true and it didn't help that the author explained right away that almost all parts of the story are pure fiction. Reading biographies and historical fiction brings me joy just when I imagine how something must have really happened. I didn't feel their connection was real. It was almost described as a crush someone has on a person they see passing by every day.

Clara is a bland character and nothing written about her didn't make me like her or dislike her, she was just plain. I see that she supposedly attracted a great businessman with her wits and intellectual conversation, but how is this different than a friendship? The progress of their relationship was slow and never reached any climax, so this really has no power for me.

Good thing about this book is the research that author clearly did before setting to write this historical piece. If you are interested in Carnegie's business endeavors, you are in for a treat. Other than that, you can enjoy other great love stories.

Interesting tale - Clara, Irish immigrant, lands on her feet after mistaken identity works in her favour. Mix this with the background of Andrew Carnegie, one of America's heroes - the epitome of the American dream- and you have the ingredients for an interesting and unusual historical novel.

Whilst on one level it appears that not much happens, this book provides a social history and an insight into the challenges faced by immigrants -- the American dream was not available to all.

4* Worth a read if you like historical fiction

DNF @63%

I loved the author's previous book, The Other Einstein and I remember being so excited, maybe even too excited when I got approved for this arc. Unfortunately, with my high expectations and actual pace of this story, this book isn't for me. I really think that lots of readers will love and appreciate it, but I think that I'll pass on this one altogether.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

This is the second book of Ms. Benedict's that I've read and I do think she creates interesting stories ... that's the point of 'historical fiction' .. part history & part fiction. The history portion is crafted from the question .. what made Andrew Carnegie give away his fortune? ... and the fictional portion is about a young woman (dare I say girl, really) that sails to America for the betterment of her family left behind in Ireland.

Once she arrived in America, Clara Kelley's life takes a turn she never could have expected. She is placed as a lady's maid to Mrs. Carnegie - Andrew Carnegie's mother. This gives her a challenging role ... common born but working in the lap of luxury. How does she balance seeing her extended family living in the sooty shadow of the iron foundries versus her life in the Carnegie mansion where every opulence exists? It's a very narrow road she walks and she has to decide whether to stay true to herself or continue in a servants role.

This made for very good reading and made me curious about Andrew Carnegie's life. Off to Google him some more! ......

Andrew Carnegie was an industrialist who led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and is often identified as one of the richest Americans in history. But more importantly, he was a philanthropist, endowing the arts, universities, libraries, and foundations. During the last two decades of his life, he gave away $350 dollars (which translates to close to $78 billion in today's economy) -- almost 90% of his wealth. What prompted a titan of industry to become such a generous philanthropist?
"Carnegie's Maid" imagines the relationship between Carnegie and his mother's lady's maid, a fresh off the boat immigrant named Clara Kelley. It is a beautifully told story, both about Carnegie's transformation from success climbing industrialist to philanthropist, as well as Clara's own story, of newly arrived impoverished immigrant to modern American woman. It is told with tremendous heart, and the reader truly comes to care for Clara. I enjoyed reading this book, and will seek out other novels by Marie Benedict.

A fascinating tale of the early days of Carnegie as he was becoming a new tycoon in steel and iron along with bridges, railroads and so on. The story is told from the viewpoint of his mother's maid and gives us a fresh view of Carnegie's beginnings.

Why did Andrew Carnegie become benevolent in December of 1868 at the age of 33, so much so that he wrote it down in a letter to himself and carried it around with him for his entire life? What or who caused him to become this way? Historians have pondered this question for over a century. What author Marie Benedict proposes as to a person has to be a pretty close assumption – it would have to be someone who was an immigrant like himself, someone intelligent, feisty, well spoken, and someone close to him in order to convince him. Why not his Mother’s ladies maid?

This is a well-written and worth reading historical fiction on the early years of Andrew Carnegie’s life. It hit home for me for many reasons. I studied countless hours in the beautiful Carnegie Library at Syracuse University while obtaining my BSEE. I pass by and admire the Carnegie Library on Montgomery Street in Syracuse every day. I’ve been in the Carnegie Library in Solvay once, but now I will go back and look at it closer.

Although I read “Carnegie’s Maid” via Net Galley, I will be buying a hard copy for my personal library and rereading it. I sincerely encourage everyone to read this book, especially if you love and enjoy public libraries. Chances are, you have one of Carnegie’s libraries nearby.

Knowing nothing about Andrew Carnegie, and being one to enjoy a slice of historical fiction, I was quite drawn to this book. I especially liked the idea that, whilst the existence of Miss Clara Kelley is fictional, Andrew Carnegie and his philanthropic work was very real; and the author had envisaged just one potential reason behind Carnegie's motivations. I really enjoyed all of the characters and the level of their development was appropriate, with the story being told from Clara's point of view. I hadn't expected to but I felt a little emotional at the end. Definitely an enjoyable read.

Carnegie's Maid is a very creative vision of how a woman shaped the life of robber-baron Carnegie and his business.
The maid, Clara Kelly, isn't really a maid, but rather a woman who has assumed the identity of another Clara Kelly for financial reasons. Clara is flat broke with no prospects so stepping into another woman's shoes works out for her. She is quite brilliant in business but not so much as a maid. She has to learn a lot of things quickly to fit in. She does this quite successfully and eventually Carnegie grows to trust and accept her suggestions for his business.
A grand look into the world of one of the richest men with great influence on the U.S. economy and policies. Exploring the idea that a woman has such power over him is clever and, frankly, humanizes Carnegie.
Clara

I received this eBook free from NetGalley. It is due to be published by Sourcebooks Landmark on 1 January 2018.

I was interested to read this book because it features Andrew Carnegie, a man famed for his fabulous wealth, his philanthropy in funding libraries (as well as swimming baths, parks, church organs etc) for all to enjoy and make use of, but also infamous for strike-breaking and ruthless business practices. I wanted to learn more.

'Carnegie's Maid' is romantic fiction that explains the enigma of Carnegie - his ruthless ambition alongside his philanthropy - by his love for a fictional servant called Clara Kelley, who influences him to altruism.

Clara Kelley's story, of how she came to be lady's maid to Carnegie's mother, of her relationship with Andrew Carnegie, is implausible. To be honest, this is not necessarily a huge problem for me: I can suspend disbelief quite happily if for example, a story is good enough or if the characters are strong enough.

With this story, descriptions of nineteenth century, industrial Pittsburgh and New York kept me reading. There were some interesting ideas about Andrew Carnegie and I enjoyed the character of Mrs Carnegie - actually, I was more interested in Clara's relationship with her than in that between Clara and Andrew Carnegie.

I am not really a romance reader so it is not unexpected that I was not pulled headlong into this story. I can't write that I learned anything new about Andrew Carnegie. Yet I still found this novel of interest, and it was an enjoyable, easy read.

A well written, intriguing story involving a young Irish immigrant and Andrew Carnegie. The story involves Clara Kelly, a young girl sent by her family to America with the task of saving the family by making her "fortune" as they are about to lose their farm near Galway. By taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity Clara becomes the Ladies Maid to the mother of Industrialist Andrew Carnegie, and through this contact has a chance to change history.

I admit I don't know this time period of history very well. I find it very fascinating leaning about the industrial revolution and the men that were the head the companies that really helped build America into a superpower. It is a time of great growth but also a lot of greed and corruption. I thought that was illustrated pretty well through this book. Through the eyes of the lady's maid to Mrs. Carnegie, mother of Andrew, we get to see some of the inter workings of how these companies were able to climb and build and swallow up. It was interesting to see how there seemed to be two sides to Andrew Carnegie, he was the ruthless business man ready to buy out and wheel and deal to build his empire while at the same time he was the immigrant who made it to the top through a lot of hard work and good timing. The maid, Clara Kelley, was able to help him see his callous actions to the workers in his factories and the plight many of those workers faced everyday and how he could help them better their situation much like he was helped in his raise to power. Very interesting time period and while I know this is fiction it helped spur an interest in the real life people that helped create the America we know now.

There was a touch of romance in this book and honestly it was forced and a bit unlikely but it was the means to further the story and spur the direction Carnegie would take his life. I liked the book and recommend it for those that like to learn a little history through a good story. It isn't history though go look up Carnegie and his real history and study that time period. It is hard to know what is real and what is fiction in his story. I would lean more on fiction until doing a bit more research.

I was looking forward to reading this novel and thought that it was an interesting premise for a book to explore the relationship between Andrew Carnegie and his maid.
The book does a good job of highlighting the social injustices that were occuring in both Ireland and America at the time, and the often vastly different experiences of life that were experienced by different social classes.
I like historical fiction but this book did not engage me as much as I thought it would, I felt that certain events were rather unbelievable and unlikely to happen, such as the maid of the title Clara, taking on the identity of a person of the same name who had died on board ship, and then managing to take on and keep the role of a lady's maid without any prior experience, also towards the end of the book the mention of a wealthy influential man like Carnegie hiring private detectives to search for his mother's ex maid.
I think the author is clearly very interested in, and has researched her subject matter in depth, but I felt overall that there were times the plot was too implausible and relied too much on coincidence. Having said that I would be happy to read more from this author
Many thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Clara is a young women who comes to America in the 1800s. She pretends to be another woman with the same name and becomes the ladies maid to Andrew Carnegie's mother. She is instrumental in making Andrew Carnegie the philanthropist he turned out to be.

This was a nice read about "Clara Kelley," and the life of the she lead and the service she provided for the Carenegie family. As a historical fiction novel, I was hoping to learn a lot more about Pittsburgh, and Carenegie himself, not 90% about a possible life of the help.

Note: I will post reviews on other sites (Amazon, GoodReads, LibraryThing, etc) as the release date gets closer.

“Carnegie’s Maid”, set in the late 1860’s, takes us into the home of one of the richest men in the world and one of the greatest philanthropists of all time – Andrew Carnegie. The story is revealed through the first person account of Clara Kelley, an Irish immigrant who becomes the “lady’s maid” to Mrs. Carnegie, Andrew’s mother. Clara, strong and determined, has come to America on the chance of finding a job that will allow her to send much needed funds back to her family in Ireland. Clara learned quickly to adapt to a country and a position that were totally foreign to her. We also see the disparities among the economic classes – the lavishness and extravagance of the wealthy against the suffering of the poor – through Clara’s unique position in both worlds.

Ms. Benedict’s writing drew me into Clara’s life and her determination to put her family’s needs over her desires. The writing allowed me to feel her loneliness from being away from her family and her isolation in the Carnegie’s home by the servants. The moments of kindness from her only friend in the house - the cook, Mr. Ford – were touching and showed her depth of compassion for others. Clara’s astuteness is revealed when through observation of Mrs. Carnegie’s stained and chapped hands obtained through decades of hard work, she realizes that Mrs. Carnegie is also trying to fit into a society foreign to her. When Clara visited cousins already living in Pittsburgh, I felt her utter despair and frustration over the poverty they were forced to live in; and I applauded her grit and determination to face social injustices head-on.

The role of Clara in Andrew Carnegie’s life is fictional; however it made for a lovely romantic story – the master of the house falling in love with the maid. Clara took an interest in his business dealings, and he listened closely to her ideas and opinions. And in the end, she changed his total view of the world. I was left curious as to what really did change his view. He came to America determined to make his fortunes and did so through the steel industry. Then in the end, he realized that was not what life was about and devoted his life to philanthropy. He established more than 2500 public libraries around the world and made endowments to research in science, education, and world peace, among others. And we can’t forget the fabulous Carnegie Hall.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was totally engrossed in it. It is educational in its presentation of the social classes at the time. At the end I went back and re-read the Prologue which made Andrew’s change of heart so much more powerful.

A fictionalized story of how Andrew Carnegie became so generous with his fortune. The romantic aspect of the story I found very cliched but the historical telling was much more interesting. For a sort book I found the reading a bit of a slog but worth a read anyway.

I really enjoyed this novel and finished it in one afternoon. The writing was great and I really liked the overall plot. Clara is an interesting protagonist and I enjoyed reading about her and her relationships. The relationship between her and Carnegie developed believably and the depiction of her life as a lady's maid felt realistic. I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys historical novels.