Experience Mrs. Mike (Mrs. Mike, #1) Developed By Benedict Freedman File PDF
copy of Mrs. Mike was my mother's, given to her by her mother around the time of her wedding, . . she passed it along to me when I was PG withas one of her favorite books, I have read it many times, and enjoy it probably more for the physical book that it is, as the story it contains.
Even though difficult things happen in the book, as do joyful ones, it comforts me as a "mighthavebeen" of ancestors.
. .
It was loosely based on the stories told by an author of an earlier generation, and the Freedmans didn't let the nonfiction aspects of her stories, or reality bind them in any way.
Still, as a reader from my youth, that doesn't bother me, Fiction is fiction. Fiction that has to have some truth to it is conditional, and sometimes that matters, but not for me in this book.
It does in others go figure, Probably, again, my history with the book and how it found its ways into my hands,
This features the broad wilderness of Canada, Royal Mounties, and tribes of the great forests in the North and Caucasion stereotypes of the's and's.
It informed the housewifely dreams of my mother and many of the women who raised me, Only one of them, to my knowledge, ever ended out living in any part of Canada, I'm a fan of stories with a pioneering spirit, and the harsh climate and living conditions of the north Canadian wilderness showed the growth and strength of the people who live there.
The romance at the beginning was sweet, even though Katherine is young and somewhat immature, and I enjoyed seeing her and Mike grow closer together throughout their marriage and the trials they faced.
Her relationships with the
Native people in the community brought depth and emotion to the story, Having lived in Alaska as well as traveled on the AlCan road which connects Alaska to the lower, I have a soft spot for stories about the wilds of the area.
Mrs. Mike is one such historical fiction title,
Katherine Mary OFallon is ayearold Irish gal sent from Boston to live with her uncle in Alberta, Canada with the hopes that the environment will help her heal from pleurisy.
Life is quite different there compared to the city of Boston with its fine clothes and theaters, Soon after arriving, Katherine meets Sergeant Mike Flannigan of the Canadian Mounted Police, They are both smitten with each other and wed in time for her to join him at his new duty station of Hudsons Hope.
While this title is a love story, it also showcases how hard of a life those living in western Canada experienced.
You can see how much of a struggle it is and walk with Katherine as she contemplates whether the losses experienced will send her back to her mother in Boston for good.
If you adore historical fiction, definitely give this book a read, Those who like a bit of romance will adore this one and find it to be free of smut.
When I read this via a copy from NetGalley to review, I didn't realize it was originally published in.
I now know that there are subsequent titles in the Mrs, Mike series and can't wait to read them,
.Stars! Just a good old fashioned sweet romance!
An oldie but goodie, It was charming, heartbreaking, full of sacrifice and struggles, and a couple devoted to each other through it all!
Who wouldn't fall in love with this!
sitelink This wasn't on my list of scheduled reads but while I was in a bookstore last month to purchase a book for a Christmas exchange, I saw Mrs.
Mike on the shelves and felt compelled to buy this much beloved book,
I'm often asked what my favorite book is, I always answer that I don't have one there are many books I love but they are too different to say one is superior to another.
I have changed my mind, Mrs. Mike is my favorite book,
A coming of age story set in the Canadian North in the year, Katherine Mary O'Fallon, a young woman of, goes to live with her uncle somewhere north of Calgary as treatment for her pleurisy.
There she meets Sergeant Mike Flannigan, a Mountie who has "eyes so blue she could swim in them.
" They are eventually married after a brief but fantastically romantic courtship and she follows him by dog sled to the arctic wilderness to live among the fur traders and Indians.
I love this book for many reasons, Most importantly, as a book, it's my first love, Mrs. Mike was the book that made me realized how much a book could move and stick with me for years.
I rarely reread a book, but I believe I've read Mrs, Mike five times now. Each time, my stomach swoons when Kathy and Mike fall in love, I laugh when Kathy covers her daughter and Mike spanks Kathy instead, I cry when the unimaginable happens and I sigh as I close the book, thinking the line at the very end is one of the best ever written.
Another reason I love this book is that it's based on a real woman's life who the authors met before writing the book.
I'm sure it's juiced from the reality, but even the skeleton of the story is moving,
I can't claim that it's the best written book, It is simple in structure, dialogue and description, but as I've read more and more over the years, and compare it to other literature, I believe the style matches the story perfectly.
It's the kind of book I can't help but promise that anyone who reads it will love it.
But I also know that with our diverse personalities and preferences, it wouldn't be true, Like a biased mother who adores her baby, I don't think I'd enjoy anyone pointing out the flaws of this book.
Perhaps its eyes are too close together and the head oddlyshaped, but it's my baby, and I think it's the most beautiful thing in the world.
Ive had this book on my shelf for a solid four years and have just now gotten around to reading it! I really enjoyed it, all but the mostly brief and overlyvivid frontier violence the two pages of an emergency amputation without painkillers is the one that really got to me.
The MC, Katherine, is loosely based on a real woman who went to the north to regain her health at her uncles home and ended up falling hard for the local Mountie.
Only problem was how far into the frontier he actually belonged, . . at the literal edge of human settlement,
The descriptions of the life are quite excellent and vivid except for the super gritty details of frontier violence, human and animal and also each side character shines in vivid colors.
Katherine remained my favorite throughout,
for the violence and semifrequent profanities and swears,
Thanks to netgalley for a free reading copy, A positive review was not required, Did you know that mosquitoes are SO bad in the far north that people can DIE from them Me neither.
Did you know that if you're trapped in a forest fire you should find the widest part of a river and stay there, but don't ever hide in a well or basement I know.
Who would've thought
And, . . hypothetically saying, of course if you needed to keep your dead away from animals and had no time or ground is too frozen to bury them, the best place is on the roof or hung in a thin tree that bears can't climb All true.
These are just some of the tidbits to be found in "Mrs, Mike".
When I first started reading it I thought it would be kind of like "Little House On The Prairie" for grown ups.
And it does have that soothing feel to it, But this is definitely much grittier, And the 'soothing' bits that at the beginning of the book you kind of snooze through, well, you'll be desperately grasping for them by the middle.
Ever read "These Is My Words", "Sarah's Quilt" and "The Star Garden" by Nancy Turner Well think of this as an Arctic version.
BASIC STORY LINE:
Ayear old girl from Boston falls in love with ayear old Canadian Monty and travels with him to the 'wild barbarian north' where he is stationed,miles from Boston.
She is one of only two white woman among a colony of trappers and Indians, There are no stores, no doctors, no nothing, How does someone make a life for themself in a land where life is so tragic that people speak of their "first family, second family, third family" Well this is the story of one woman who did just that and did it well.
CONTENT:
SEX: None
LANGUAGE: very mild cussing
DRUG USE/SMOKING/DRINKING: One character gets drunk.
Whisky is also liberally used as anaesthetic,
VIOLENCE: Moderate and descriptive,
While some could argue that the story could be told without the descriptive "violence", I really feel you would lose the authentic feel of what those hardships were like and how these experiences moulded the characters.
I feel that the descriptions are needed to truly get into the shoes of the characters and feel what they feel.
I'll give you ONE example
During the forest fire, women and children are hiding in the river.
The smoke is so bad and the heat so intense that they have to submerge themselves under water to escape it, and even then, some end up with second degree burns.
Many who are not in the river will die and there are descriptions afterwards of the search for bodies.
Now, some time later, Kathy makes a trip back home to Boston and is struck dumbfounded when her mother's lodgers are squabbling about who burnt the toast.
It was a WOW moment for me and I don't think I would have felt the full impact if I as a reader hadn't been in the thick of the horror.
THEMATIC ISSUES: Trapping, smallpox and diphtheria epidemics, amputation, childbirth, domestic violence NOT glorified, abortive herbs also not glorified, widespread forest fire, Arctic conditions etc
MY RATING: PG
BOTTOM LINE: Well worth a read!!
.
stars, rounded down for veering from the facts given to them by the real Katherine O'Flannagan, and with my sympathies to her: Some storyspoilers in here, so beware:
As for the book itself, I've been through the fire with this one.
A classic, published in. It's semirealistic historical fiction with some sense of a love story but also a good deal of tragedy, including some truly grisly scenes.
I alternately read the ebook and listened to the audio, narrated by the talented Kirsten Potter, It was also made into a movie, starring Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes, but I haven't seen it.
This fastpaced narrative is told inst person POV in the perspective of "Mrs, Mike" the name the Cree and Beaver natives use for the heroine, Katherine Mary O'Fallon Flannigan, of Boston.
The story begins in March, on a train bound for Calgary, in the midst of a historic snowstorm.
The story continues in Alberta and British Columbia, Western Canada Calgary, Hudson's Hope, Peace River Crossing, and Grouard, near Lower Slave Lake.
Descriptive. Vivid imagery, yet fairly simplistic writing, with some exceptions, Educational. Sometimes funny. Sometimes profound. A few sweet loving scenes, with hugs and kisses, And terribly horribly grim at times, Very sad.
Realistic but extreme look at life in the Canadian wilderness, the serenity, the majesty, and the horror.
Beautiful scenery, wondrous wild animals, enormous forest fires, diphtheria, insanity, murder, goodnatured natives and their folklore, a mission with school, nuns and a kindly bishop, mosquitos, moose, elks, bears, wolves, prairie chickens rabbits, dogsleds huskies, etc.
Loved the hero of the tale, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Mike Flannigan, His love for life, for the wilderness, for the natives, and for his girl Kathy was transparent, When they marry in, Mike isyears old and Katherine is, When the story ends, they are each aboutyears older, They've suffered great loss and experienced great joy in onlyyears, Katherine has grown up.
The authors credibly portray women of tremendous emotional courage and resiliency, especially Sarah and Constance, but also Katherine Mary herself.
Quibbles: I wish the authors had been more true to the facts, Also, the book suddenly ends after aboutyears of marriage, I wish there were more closure, Another quibble is that some important scenes and characters were insuffuciently developed, oversimplified, Also, the chapter about the Chinese emperors did not seem to fit at all, never mind how boring and silly it was.
See my reading status updates and my posted quotes for more about the book,
The ebook ends with a teaser to the sequel, sitelinkThe Search for Joyful: A Mrs, Mike Novel. The authors wrote it decades after Mrs, Mike. It tells of Kathy, the daughter of Mamanowatum aka Oh Be Joyful and Jonathan Forquet, She is a young lady planning to become a nurse in World War II, an Indian woman from the boonies immersed in a world dominated by white men.
From Wikipedia:
Considered by some a youngadult classic, Mrs, Mike was initially serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and was the Marchselection of the Literary Guild, It was a critical and popular success, withnonUS editions, .