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Mary Wollstonecraft Series
18th century Mitchelstown Castle hums with intrigue. An impoverished but rebellious English governess (future author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) seeks justice after a young Irish rebel and a roguish aristocrat die in cold blood.
From the preface:
Mary Wollstonecraft shocked the eighteenth century world with her outspoken views on marriage, children, and women’s rights, her advocacy of divorce reform, and her involvement with the French Revolution. She set off a tempest of scandal through her passionate love affairs, the birth of an illegitimate child, and her attempts at suicide. A "hyena in petticoats," a contemporary called her. Her short life was a continual struggle between her principles and her own sexuality. The struggle ended at the age of thirty-eight when she died giving birth to a second but, this time, legitimate daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. The latter married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and true to the Wollstonecraft blood, wrote the suspense novel, Frankenstein.
Wollstonecraft (pronounced WALLston-croft) left numerous works to the world, including her famous Vindication of the Rights of Woman… (Click here to read more from the preface of Midnight Fires)
Reviews & Comments:
At the start of this captivating historical set in 1786, Mary Wollstonecraft is on her way to Ireland to become a governess, "that most humiliating of occupations." At Mitchelstown Castle in County Cork, headstrong Mary, the future mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, and future women's rights advocate, is determined to pen a novel and remain above the fray of castle politics while schooling Lord and Lady Kingsboroughs' daughters. Three suspicious deaths, however, compel Mary to seek justice for a poor young sailor, the family's troubled former governess, and even an aristocrat. It appears everyone from poet George Ogle, Lady K's new flirt, to a land tenant or two has a motive in one or more of these tangled deaths. As Mary snoops around in search of the culprit, she is bound not to lose herself to the mystery, her job, or the charms of any man. Wright (Mad Season and four other Ruth Willmarth mysteries) deftly illuminates 18th-century class tensions.
—Publishers Weekly, February 15, 2010RICH WITH HISTORY, PERSONALITY… It's reasonable, if regrettable, to believe that few 21st-century American women have ever heard of Mary Wollstonecraft, but had there been media in 18th-century Britain and Ireland comparable to today's Internet, surely this early crusader for women's rights would have been an international celebrity. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, did become famous for marrying the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and for writing "Frankenstein."
Nancy Means Wright, a prolific, disciplined and well-informed Vermont author living in the town of Cornwall, has seized upon the true story of Wollstonecraft to create the heroine of a finely honed mystery set in Ireland at a time, roughly corresponding with the American Revolution, when the Irish suffered under the often-cruel thumb of insensitive, tradition-bound British aristocrats. It wasn't entirely Irish Catholics suppressed by British Protestants, but it was largely that way.
Since the real Mary Wollstonecraft — once described as "a hyena in petticoats," Wright tells us — was an extremely controversial figure in the early and predictably futile struggles to liberate women from the stultifying yoke of traditional male domination, Wright had a rich field of history to harvest in gathering material for her novel.
—Click here to continue reading this review by A.C. Hutchison Vermont Sunday Magazine, April 4, 2010A delightful new arrival on the historical mystery scene, Midnight Fires… is an entertainingly seamy portrayal of provincial aristocrats and the day-to-day messiness of 18th century life. Add a feisty, engaging heroine in the young Mary Wollstonecraft and the result is an atmospheric & absorbing whodunit.
—Susanne Alleyn, author of The Aristide Ravel MysteriesDespite the constraints of class, culture, stays and skirts, Wright’s fictionalized Mary Wollstonecraft is thoroughly engaging on her voyage of detection and self-discovery.
—Kate Flora, Edgar- nominated author of Finding Amy
Midnight Fires was published April, 2010 by Perseverance Press (ISBN 978-1-56474-488-3) / $14.95.
Read the Preface to Midnight Fires.
Read Chapter One and Two of Midnight Fires.
Read VITA, Poems Suggested by the Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Nancy's Events Calendar
February 8, Blog for Cozy Mysteries: "Why I Write Cozy Mysteries." Donna Lee Simpson
February 20: Online Panel on "Originality in Crime Fiction" for Agatho’s Mysterious Matters blog.
March 4, Thurs: Blog at Working Writers. (Cherie Burbach) Interview.
March 5, Fri: Blog at Murderous Musings: "When Bad Things Happen: What I Learned from an 18th century Feminist." (Jean Henry Mead)
March 18, Thurs. Creatures’n Crooks blog: "Becoming Mary Wollstonecraft." (Lelia Taylor)
March 23, Monday: Reading the Past blog (Sarah Johnson) "An 18th Century Publisher Takes on a Ball of Fire."
April 2, Friday: Historical Tapestries blog. "I Love Rebellious Women: A Tale of Three 18th Century Rebels." (Ana)
April 3-4, weekend: Poe’s Deadly Daughters blog. (Sandy Parshall) "Melancholy and Alone: The 18th Century Governess."
April 8, Thursday. Chris Redding’s blog (Interview) Author’s Day. (Giveaway)
April 12, 4pm EST. Blog Talk Radio: Interview with Sylvia Dickey Smith.
April 13: Novel Journey blog. Interview
April 13, Friday, 7 pm. Belmont Library, Ma. Panel. "Mixing Fact & Fiction in Mystery Novels" (Susan Oleksiw, Sarah Smith, Nancy Means Wright.)
April 22, Thurs, 7 pm: Vermont Bookshop/Ilsley Library. Panel:"The Year 1786 from the Perspective of two Historical Mystery Authors. (Susanne Alleyn, Nancy Means Wright)
April 24, Sat: Illustrated Talk: "Becoming Your Character: How to s-t-r-e-t-c-h your Imagination and Write Historical Fiction." League of Vt Writers Conference, Middlebury Inn, Middlebury, Vermont.
May 2, Sunday 11:40: Malice Domestic Panel / DC/Crystal City, Virginia. (As Time Goes By: How Sleuthing Changed from the 1500s through the 1800s.
May 12: Jungle Red Writers Blog interview.
May 15, 7 pm: Phoenix Bookstore, Essex, Vt. Panel, signing.
May 21, Friday: Champlain College Young Writers' conference (Vt).
May 26: Podcast Radio Interview with Shelagh Shapiro: "Write the Book".
May 28: "Mystery on Main Street" bookstore talk/signing. Brattleboro, Vt.
June 4, Friday: Morse Institute, Natick, MA—State Librarian’s conference. Panel: "Relationships can be Murder." Leslie Wheeler, Sheila Connelly, Hank Philippi Ryan, Clea Simon, Nancy Means Wright.
June 5-10: on Mysterious Writers blog, Jean Henry Mead host.
June 23: Noon Brown Bag Lunch talk/signing at South Burlington Community Library, Dorset St.
June-July events TBA at Brown Dog Books & Gifts, Hinesburg, Vt and Briggs Carriage Bookstore, Brandon, Vt.
July 12: Author's Exchange Blog interview with Linda Faulkner.
July 16: Brown Dog Books & Gifts, 7 pm. Illustrated talk/signing.
July 23-24: League of Vt Writers Conference. Workshop Leader on writing mysteries/signing. Mount Snow, Vermont.
August 25: Baker Street Breakfast Club talk/signing, Bennington, Vt.
October 14-17: Bouchercon, San Francisco. Panel.
November 6:, Saturday, online. PPWebcon panels/et al.
November 13-14: Crime Bake Conference panel/signing, Dedham Hilton Hotel, MA.
December 9, Thurs. Blog at Meanderings and Muses. (Kaye Barley)
Book Group Discussion Questions for Midnight Fires
Consider the relationship of governess and mistress. At Mitchelstown Castle, who prevails: Mary or Lady K?
Describe the teacher-pupil relationship between Mary Wollstonecraft and Margaret King. An 18th century governess must not infringe on any mother-daughter affection, yet Mary is ultimately dismissed for this reason. Who is to blame?
What do you see of 18th-century class tensions in this novel? Of religious issues? Where does Mary stand on the issue of class? Could a relationship between Mary and Liam, or young George and Fiona ever work?
A few years after the end of Mary's ten months of governessing, Margaret abandons her own class, leaves her husband for a middle class man, and joins the United Irish rebels. Anglo-Irish society blamed Mary's "bad influence." Were they right to do so?
What hints have we here in 1786 of Mary’s future groundbreaking work: A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (1792)?
Discuss the use of the masquerade and the play Midsummer Night’s Dream as a theme in this novel.
In your opinion, does Mary make a believable sleuth?
A few unanswered questions: How guilty is Lord Robert K for any malice in this novel? Did James King favor the Irish rebels—or the Protestant aristocrats (of which he was one)? Was Nora guilty for drowning Fiona’s child?
Consider the tragedy of the former governess Eva, and the difficulties for governesses in general.
Discuss the relevance of the title, Midnight Fires.
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