The Paris Wife meets PBS’s Victoria in this enthralling novel of the life and loves of one of history’s most remarkable women: Winston Churchill’s scandalous American mother, Jennie Jerome. Wealthy, privileged, and fiercely independent New Yorker Jennie Jerome took Victorian England by storm when she landed on its shores. As Lady Randolph Churchill, she gave birth to a man who defined the … to a man who defined the twentieth century: her son Winston. But Jennie—reared in the luxury of Gilded Age Newport and the Paris of the Second Empire—lived an outrageously modern life all her own, filled with controversy, passion, tragedy, and triumph.
When the nineteen-year-old beauty agrees to marry the son of a duke she has known only three days, she’s instantly swept up in a whirlwind of British politics and the breathless social climbing of the Marlborough House Set, the reckless men who surround Bertie, Prince of Wales. Raised to think for herself and careless of English society rules, the new Lady Randolph Churchill quickly becomes a London sensation: adored by some, despised by others.
Artistically gifted and politically shrewd, she shapes her husband’s rise in Parliament and her young son’s difficult passage through boyhood. But as the family’s influence soars, scandals explode and tragedy befalls the Churchills. Jennie is inescapably drawn to the brilliant and seductive Count Charles Kinsky—diplomat, skilled horse-racer, deeply passionate lover. Their affair only intensifies as Randolph Churchill’s sanity frays, and Jennie—a woman whose every move on the public stage is judged—must walk a tightrope between duty and desire. Forced to decide where her heart truly belongs, Jennie risks everything—even her son—and disrupts lives, including her own, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Breathing new life into Jennie’s legacy and the glittering world over which she reigned, That Churchill Woman paints a portrait of the difficult—and sometimes impossible—balance among love, freedom, and obligation, while capturing the spirit of an unforgettable woman, one who altered the course of history.
Praise for That Churchill Woman
“The perfect confection of a novel . . . We’re introduced to Jennie in all of her passion and keen intelligence and beauty. While she is surrounded by a cast of late-Victorian celebrities, including Bertie, Prince of Wales, it’s always Jennie who shines and takes the center stage she was born to.”—Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue
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The perfect confection of a novel . . . We’re introduced to Jennie in all of her passion and keen intelligence and beauty. While she is surrounded by a cast of late-Victorian celebrities, including Bertie, Prince of Wales, it’s always Jennie who shines and takes the center stage she was born to.
Stephanie Barron cuts through the scandal and rumors surrounding Lady Randolph Churchill to bring us the woman herself in all her complexity: caught between worlds as an American in England, an intimate of princes, a favorite target of the scandal sheets, yet intensely private and fiercely loyal. Barron brings us along with Jennie to a world seething with secrets behind a façade of intricate etiquette and elaborate gowns. . . . An immense accomplishment from a seasoned author.
Great book, great story!
Jenny Churchill was a remarkable woman. Although historical fiction, this book offers an even-handed portrayal.
It was a good book describing the tragedies in people’s lives and how they survive
Educational re. Historical figures, presented as a novel, describing a time when mores and expectations differed from more recent times… or was it just because they were rich?
I loved this book, but I’m a history lover. I’d heard so many bits and pieces about Jenny, but this put it all together. I loved it!
I had no idea about Winston’s parents! This was a fun, informative read.
I enjoyed this book especially because you could relate to Mrs Churchill in a manner so encompassing for the era.She had to live her life as an aristocrat.She was committed to a certain standard.Great read!
Winston Churchill’s mother has been the subject of many books. but this one gives us a sense of who she really was – a highly intelligent and adventurous woman married to a man who preferred other men.
I never knew about Winston Churchill’s almost fatherless childhood or that his father was of importance in Parliament. I started out not liking Winston’s mother and ended up feeling very sorry for her. Real insight into British life for nobles at the end of the 19th century.
I could not put this down. How so many decisions affected outcomes and the sacrifices made. The love of a mother.
Jenny Churchill was a larger-than-life character, born to a wealthy American but lived as an English aristocrat most of her life. The mother of Winston Churchill, she also led a fascinating life close to the center of power. She took lovers because her husband Lord Randolph Churchill, had contracted syphilis as a young man, but didn’t know it for several years. Thankfully, neither Jenny nor her two sons, (one of whom, Jack) was NOT Randolph’s. She did remain married to Randolph
, and nursed him through the final, horrible stages of syphilis, for which then there was no cure. She certainly had her faults, but she remained loyal to her husband and children.
Tedious
While I sometimes got a little lost in the ins and outs of British politics and the way things work in Parliament, the characters were well drawn and the story interesting. And the look into Winston Churchill’s early years was fascinating.
The only disapointment I had in in this book was that there was very little about Winston in it. Jenny was a wonderful woman, way ahead of her time and she didn’t have any qualms letting people who she was. Easy to read and the characters were so believable that I goggled a lot of the people she came into contact with. I highly recommend this book~
I was supposed to learn so much about Winston Churchill’s parents. I found the book enjoyable.
Well researched, emotionally realistic.
very interesting
Provided fresh insights into a woman who figured prominently, for good and for ill, in the life of Winston Churchill.