It’s hard to make a likable protagonist out of an occasionally unlikeable person, but The American Adventuress manages that trick in spades. C.W. Gortner tells the truth about Jennie Jerome-Churchill with a soapy overlay – and even though you’re not going to come away from this book loving Jennie, you will probably enjoy watching her rise to the top of the British political scene.

Jennie is an uber-rich heiress who is very aware of her own financial worth and doesn’t take to rules. She idolizes her father but finds herself tied to her social climbing mother Leonine after her parents’ divorce; her younger, more submissive sister Clarita is slightly more willing to go along with the plan to get them married to a titled man – any titled man.

Jennie, Leonine and Clarita go to Paris to chase titles, and also so her mother can control the girl’s lives instead of their father. Leonine is a dragon, but a dragon with purpose. In spite of her protests, Jennie eventually lands the son of a duke, Sir Randolph Churchill, and their romance is steadfast but will cut Jennie off from her trust fund and will force her and Randolph to make their way in the world on the small income he receives as a duke’s son. They force her mother’s hand by having sex before marriage; their son, Winston, is an eight month child, and he’s soon followed by a brother named Jack. While their romance is initially wonderful, Randolph cannot stay sexually faithful, and he soon embarks on affairs. Jennie soon does the same, for both pleasure and to boost Randolph’s political career. By the time Winston is a grown man with a political career of his own, Jennie has been a diplomat’s wife, dealt with the fact that Randolph has died of syphilis, and married a much younger man. She’s also been accused of being a mistress of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII); the book portrays a deep friendship between them as well as a bit more.

This is a wonderfully rich sauce, and Jennie is both sympathetic – loving her son, loving her husband, adoring her nanny – and terrible in her sense of superiority, her impatience with her sisters and her lovers. The American Adventuress does not try to cover up her flaws and instead gives readers every molecule of what they must be craving; sibling drama, mommy trauma, glamorous parties and locales, and more affairs than you can shake a stick at.

The resulting brew is easy to digest and a lot of fun to read, and as always Gortner tries to hew as close to the facts as possible while having a little fun with it all. It’s perfectly solid historical fiction, and a good way to pass an afternoon.

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