Absolutely brilliant historical fiction.
Take a well-known figure from history, in this case Nathaniel Hawthorne. Choose a period of their life which has always been a bit mysterious, for him the decade or so after college. Throw in a mysterious fact: of his 5 published novels, only one has no known tie-in to his real life. Finish off by telling that story, create the perfect tie-in to his real life, make it make sense as to why he never would have written about it or owned up to it, make it just believable enough that you really don't have to wonder "what if...?" Tell the story of the immigrant woman who fell in love with him, inspired his novel, and whose life and struggles and almost ruin and survival becomes a bigger and better story. Yep. That's the stuff.
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this digital ARC to read and review. #Hester #NetGalley 🤩📚💕 Pub date 10/04/22

I loved reading this book! I found the writing to be very insightful and interesting. I was intrigued by the premise and I enjoyed reading it from start to finish.

I love this kind of book. Take a classic, The Scarlet Letter, and a historical event, the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and re-imagine them from the perspective of a different character. There was also a strong theme around slavery present. I don't think I ever thought about Nathaniel Hawthorne existing at this time. As a bonus, our heroine has synesthesia - she sees colors for sounds, words, and letters. This is the second book I've read that features synesthesia. If you enjoyed that aspect, check out The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder.

Great book! Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance copy.

An absolutely beautifully written novel based on the real Hester Prynne from the classic The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Firstly, I was initially denied for a copy of this on Edelweiss and I was totally bummed by a stroke of luck the author was gifting readers on NetGalley a chance to read it now for a few days and it was my oh so lucky day! Thank you to author Laurie Lico Albanese and NetGalley for gifting readers an opportunity to read this awesome book!

Told between dual timelines Hester begins in the early 1800's with the beautiful young seamstress Isobel and her ambitious apothecary husband Edward who set sail from Scotland to Salem in hopes of prosperity in a new country. But after shortly arriving in their new land Edward with his addiction to the Opium he cultivates for cures leads him to depart on an outgoing ship where he will serve as a medic leaving Isobel to fend for herself. Alone and frightened Isobel uses her gift of sewing to create sumptuous works of clothing for the local gentry women as a means to survive. As she begins to find meaning in life amid her skills she meets young handsome author Nathaniel Hawthorne, a man tormented by the ghosts of his ancestors who were chiefly responsible for the demise of falsely accused women branded as witches during the Salem Witch hunts of the 1660's. Together they are dangerously involved with each other knowing their love affair could be discovered by her returning husband and by the gossiping harpies of Salem. Without giving away anymore details of the storyline, this was a truly beautiful nuanced reimagining of the woman who inspired the character of Hester Prynne and the fierce women of Isobel's heritage who paved her way to survive. Recommended.

This novel is witchcraft. It’s spell binding. Magical. The perfect blend of the original plot mixed with a modern take. Every character - from the main protagonist Isobel to the most minor of secondary characters has a rich and dynamic back story. The layers of humanity - what makes a person good/bad, generous/greedy, sinful/innocent is perfectly told through these characters. I loved the way the story kept true to the original, while also weaving the plot around the topics of the Salem Witch Trials and The Underground Railroad and making the journey the characters follow have a ripple effect through all three. Overall one of the best retellings I have read!

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese is a great historical fiction that takes us into the world of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the complex and intriguing woman that helped inspire the classic novel. I enjoyed it.

This is my first book by this author and I am impressed by her talent and ability to create a vivid, realistic account of an historical time period. I really felt as if I was transported to era of the Salem witch trials in 17th century New England. It was definitely not an easy time for the faint of heart. The detail and research to create such a lifelike and descriptive account was evident throughout.

This is more of a character-based narrative at its heart, and seeing the emotion, thoughts, inspirations, fears, and pivotal moments that were potentially part of the foundation of Hester as we know her from the author’s experiences with, and of, Isobel, was very interesting, especially from such a unique perspective. I definitely have not read anything quite like this before, and I mean that in a positive way.

4/5 stars

Thank you NG and St. Martin’s Press for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 10/4/22.

This was a DNF for me at 47%. The premise of The Scarlet Letter having inspiration by a real individual was exciting, but the book lacked solid plot by the point of DNF and there was barely a presence of Hawthorn at all for a book half about himself. Isobel did nothing for me and I just couldn't get myself to want to read it. I won't be reviewing elsewhere.

Reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" can be a struggle, especially if forced to by school, but for me it was an interesting story when I first came across it, through the film with Demi Moore and Gary Oldman, and then the book. I have been aware of speculations about its source of inspiration for a while, all of them steeped in 17th century Puritan New England history with its witch hunt trials, its laws against adultery that hoisted red A letters on the convicted, and the generally oppressive atmosphere that Hawthorne himself detested.

So the idea presented in this novel was intriguing: what if "The Scarlet Letter" was based on Hawthorne himself? Supposedly, all his other novels' source of inspiration are known save for "The Scarlet Letter," a claim that had me doubting it from the start, as I'm not aware that there's a lack of candidates for Hawthorne's inspiration for Hester Prynne. Nonetheless, I kept an open mind and read on to see unfold this premise that Hester really existed and that Dimmesdale was Hawthorne himself, who later would base his bestselling novel on this adulterous love affair he was involved in.

And it was utterly unconvincing. For one, the author provided no argument but "What if?" The gist of it being that since there's supposedly no personal life inspiration for the novel, then that must mean Hawthorne had to have experienced the story himself and must have had an affair with a real-life Hester. And that's it. No proof. No argument as to why it's plausible. Nothing but a circular argument that it had to be personal experience. And that's where the story lost me, as there's absolutely no logical basis and it disregards any other possibilities that are far more plausible, and have actual proof, for what could've been Hawthorne's inspiration, which isn't as mysterious as it's claimed here. And also, why is it assumed that novelists need to have personal experiences with something to write about that particular topic? Even the most personal and inward-looking writers do write about stuff outside their experience sometimes, <i>especially</i> historical fiction writers because the very nature of the genre requires they write about things they haven't experienced personally. And "The Scarlet Letter" is a historical novel. Furthermore, there are bits in the novel that are easy to tie with Hawthorne's personal life besides the Hester/Dimmesdale affair, and there's actual historical records of cases that are surprisingly like the plot of the novel and that took place within easy distance of Hawthorne's own hometown. So no, it's not convincing to me.

But even if we take the premise as purely speculative and go along with it, it still didn't make for a captivating story by the telling. I struggled with the often flowery bordering on purple prose, the back-to-the-past inserts that throw you back centuries to tell a parallel story that was choppy and syncopated. And I also struggled with the synesthesia descriptions, that is the intersection of two sensory networks that results in the mingling of two or more senses (you "see" sound, you "hear" colours, etc.), which is overdone. My older sister is a synesthete, she can do what the character of Isobel Gamble can do, so I can tell that the descriptions of Isabel's synesthesia is exaggerated, Hollywoodish, and described like a non-synesthete imagines it is. Also, the ideas about synesthesia in the times before modern neurology could study it are far more complex than the detestable mindset that assumes anything not liable to be explained by modern science was automatically linked to witchcraft by the people back then.

The real Hawthorne was an interesting person, but here he comes across as weak and mostly subservient to the story of the fictional Isabel Gamble, who is hard to like and harder to relate. I do get that the novel tries to show how terribly constrained a woman's life could be back then, and it does succeed in that, although this is not exactly hard to achieve given that Salem, Massachussetts practically writes itself as the byword for oppressive, misogynistic Puritanism. Basically, it turns into a "The Scarlet Letter" fanfiction about the real author with a fictional character instead, a relationship too underdeveloped and full of adolescent angst that doesn't resonate the same way Hawthorne's novel does, whose strength is in showing the most iconic strong and independent woman in American literature.

This is how historical fiction should be written! A story of perseverance, persistence, and a bit of magic, Hester is a paragon of female empowerment. This is the first I've read of Laurie Albenese and it did not disappoint! I am enthralled with her ability to intertwine two movements in history one would not typically conjoin. The eloquent prose, vivid descriptions, the flawlessly flawed characters, the ingenious art of inverse perspective is captivating! Will recommend again and again!

If all of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works besides The Scarlet Letter are known to be based on his life, then what if his most famous novel is, too? What if Hester Pyrne was real? In Laurie Lico Albanese’s latest historical fiction, she is.

Isobel, the inspiration for Hester, is a young immigrant with a talent for embroidery and a careless husband. She falls in love with the haunted writer Nat Hathorne when her husband is at sea, a decision that almost leads to her ruin.

The growth Isobel experiences over the span of “Hester” is fantastic and my personal favorite part of the novel. We meet her in childhood, an innocent young girl with a needle and thread and visions of colors - she has synesthesia, which allows her to sees voices and letters in a startling brightness which would have been considered witchcraft in that day. We then follow her through her marriage to the opium-addicted Edward and her ill-fated affair with the young Nathaniel Hawthorne, watching her naivety diminish but her strength and courage grow. She writes her own story, leaving the broken men in her life behind.

The secondary cast is excellent, too. I did feel for Nat at times, even when I wanted to smack him. But the other women Isobel befriends - especially Nell, a house servant and Mercy, a Black woman who lives next to Isobel, were my favorites. A few other characters turn out to be more than what they seem, as revealed in spite of Isobel’s prejudices.

A great work of historical fiction that focuses on those history often forgets. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Isobel Gamble is a seamstress carrying a secret when she goes from Scotland to the new world her husband. Right away Isobel’s husband joins a team of traveling medics which leaves her alone with no money. During this time, she meets Nathaniel Hawthorne, who she gets close to.
The characters were well written, and I could feel the struggles of the main character. I loved the way the author was able to create drama in a way that doesn’t make the whole story about it. My only issue with the book is that there were moments where the book seemed to be slow.

The only thing better than reading advanced copies of books is when you know it's going to be a hit... Hester is the first of author Laurie Lico Albanese's books, though Stolen Beauty is on my TBR list, and it did not disappoint. While the prose does sometimes get a bit too flowery (literally), with details as intricately woven as Isobel's patterns, and there's not a ton of action, the world is fully wrought and Isobel herself is magnetic enough to power the narrative. I personally would've liked to see a bit more of the possible-witchiness, to feel a tiny bit more of why Isobel might harbor fears that she was a witch, but I suppose that's Albanese's point. By keeping the story so grounded and contained, the point couldn't be more clear how women were ostracized for being independent thinkers and for living outside the patriarchal chains of marriage, and in the case of the Salem witch trials, they were baselessly persecuted and hanged.
I really loved how 'otherness' is explored in the book, drawing threads between various marginalized people: immigrants, women, people of color. There is first a recognition, that we are more alike than we may initially realize, and then a warning, that when even one group of people is oppressed and subject to inequality, we are all in danger.
Though the book is so intimate and focused on a short period of time in one woman's life, there are much bigger social messages worked into the story, without getting preachy. And eventually, that one woman-- small as her story may be-- winds up having an effect not only on Nat's life, but on many lives.

I love retellings of classics. Getting to read about the inspiration behind The Scarlet Letter was so interesting, and I fell in love with Isobel very quickly. I greatly enjoyed how a little bit of magic was sprinkled in, the way Isobel was determined to make her life work no matter what, and the support and friends she did find. The story was written very well, too, and sucked me in quickly.