The 19th Wife

“Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.”

 

The 19th Wife Is #1 On BookRiot’s List of Must-Read Historical Novels!

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of her family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how both she and her mother became plural wives. Yet soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love, family, and faith.

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“Engrossing…remarkable…a book packed with historical illumination, unforgettable characters and the deepest questions about the tenacity of belief” –The Washington Post Book World

“The 19th Wife is a big book, in every sense of the word. It sweeps across time and delves deeply into a world long hidden from sight. It offers historical and contemporary perspective on one of the world’s fastest-growing religions and one of its oldest practices, and in the process it does that thing all good novels do: It entertains us.” –Los Angeles Times

“Rarely has a work of fiction seemed more timely…A page-turning epic…[a] tour de force.” –Vogue

Discussion questions for The 19th Wife