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She built the Brooklyn Bridge, so why don’t you know her name?
Emily Roebling built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow. Discover the fascinating woman who helped design and construct the Brooklyn Bridge. Perfect for book clubs and fans of Marie Benedict.
Emily refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and … Benedict.
Emily refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and what she wants, and she’s determined to make change. But then her husband asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible.
Emily’s fight for women’s suffrage is put on hold, and her life transformed when her husband Washington Roebling, the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. But as the project takes shape under Emily’s direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building—hers, or her husband’s. As the monument rises, Emily’s marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridge finally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it?
Based on the true story of an American icon, The Engineer’s Wife delivers an emotional portrait of a woman transformed by a project of unfathomable scale, which takes her into the bowels of the East River, suffragette riots, the halls of Manhattan’s elite, and the heady, freewheeling temptations of P.T. Barnum. The biography of a husband and wife determined to build something that lasts—even at the risk of losing each other.
“Historical fiction at its finest.”—Andrea Bobotis, author of The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt
Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Sourcebooks Landmark:
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris
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A good story. A great look at early New York City.
Tracey Enerson Wood delivers an absorbing and poignant tale of struggle, self-sacrifice and the family transformed by the building of the legendary American landmark during the volatile time of women’s suffrage, riots and corruption. A triumphant debut not to be missed!
Read The Great Bridge by David McCollough if you want the real story of how the bridge was built.
What an amazing woman, thank goodness for trailblazer’s like her.
Fabulous book. Made me want to learn more about the Brooklyn Bridge. I already recommended it to several friends.
I first heard the name Washington Roebling when I watched Ken Burns epic Civil War series. I recall the last episode mentioning Roebling engineering the bridge construction. I also read somewhere that his wife was an active participant in his work. Those two facts drew me to this book.
I enjoyed the book but felt the role of PT Barnum dominated too much of the story. The author’s afterward confesses that she created that relationship. Sadly, that made me wonder if she’d also inflated Emily Roebling’s role in the bridge construction. I guess I’ll have to read a non-fiction account to find out.
very interesting and taken place before women could even vote. So her handling of the building of the bridge was quite a feat for a women as the men did not approve of her at all. Her husband got the bends while working on the casinos during the construction and was unable to work. However she won them over and was able to finish the bridge following her husbands instructions.
When engineer Washington Roebling’s father died, it fell to him to build the Brooklyn Bridge, an unprecedented engineering feat. Luckily, Wash had married a woman of intelligence and strength, because when he fell victim to caissons disease (decompression sickness), Emily became his link to the outside world. Eventually, her understanding of engineering brought her to be the de facto engineer in charge of the bridge.
Tracey Enerson Wood’s historical fiction novel The Engineer’s Wife imagines Emily’s story from girlhood, as a young wife, and finally as an engineer.
Wood does a splendid job of incorporating how the bridge was literally built and the risks it incorporated. That alone is an amazing story that sweeps across the heights and depths of human emotion and scientific progress.
Wood makes the story universally appealing by turning it into a romance as well, with Emily’s love for Wash turns to despair when his illness leaves her without his support, emotionally and intimately. She struggles to find confidence, leaning on P. T. Barnum, their fictional relationship not based on history, but delineating how the real Emily may have struggled without an involved husband.
I would have been kept interested strictly by Emily’s personal growth and ability to meet challenges usually given to men. But the romance angle will appeal to many historical fiction readers.
It is an absorbing and interesting novel.
I received a free book from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
A triumphant historical novel sure to please readers of the genre. Like Paula McLain, Tracey Enerson Wood spins a colorful and romantic tale of a storied era.
A historical fiction novel about the woman who helped design and construct the Brooklyn Bridge during a time when women couldn’t vote. I enjoyed the novel but thought the book’s tone shifted after showman PT Barnum appeared to emphasize their (imagined) emotional affair.
Immersive, insightful, and alluring!
The Engineer’s Wife is a fascinating tale that sweeps you away to 1870s New York and into the life of Emily Roebling, a young woman ahead of her time who is a suffragist at heart but due to the sudden loss of her father-in-law and her husband’s debilitation from caisson disease focuses her attention on overcoming the social constraints, corruption, and prejudices of the time to complete the construction of the infamous Brooklyn Bridge.
The prose is descriptive and rich. The characters are flawed, driven, and engaging. And the plot is a vivid, absorbing tale of life, loss, love, hope, greed, politics, family, sacrifices, tragedy, successes, and the intricacies of building a suspension bridge in the late 19th century.
Overall, The Engineer’s Wife is a nuanced, perceptive, well-written tale that does a beautiful job of highlighting Tracey Enerson Wood’s impressive research and considerable knowledge into this magnificent engineering feat that still graces the New York skyline today and the people who dared to imagine, design, and build it.
Excellent historical novel based on the life of Emily Warren Roebling, the woman who was instrumental in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. A brilliant woman, living during the time when a woman’s place was in the home. Women were fighting for their rights but faced overwhelming resistance so any accomplishment a woman made was never recognized.
I’ve been waiting for this book ever since I first heard of Emily Warren Roebling, who took over building the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband fell ill, and Wood’s take does not disappoint. A story more of us should know.
I looked forward to reading the book about Emily Warren Roebling who was the wife of the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Emily was an amazing woman and her determination to accomplish things despite the fact that she was a woman…who were not respected in that day and time.
The author obviously did a lot of research. I also appreciated all of the efforts Emily put into the suffrage movement. She was a strong woman and, despite the lack of affection from her husband, was willing to accomplish awesome feats.
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
Fantastic! I’m in awe of all Enerson’s research and creative crafting of this page-turner. I’ll never look at the Brooklyn Bridge the same anymore. I laughed, cried, got angry and frustrated all while adoring the whole story. Be sure to read the author notes at the end since you’ll believe everything is fact since it’s written so beautifully with vivid world building.
Emily Warren is not the conventional woman, and knows what she wants in life. She is all for women’s right, and is not afraid to speak out about it. Her brother G.K. is back on leave from the war, and brings along the man who will become her husband, Washington Roebling. The man who will allow her to be who she is, but also will change her life unlike she could have ever imagined.
Washington makes it back safely from the war, although there are scars internally that he carries with him. However, he soon dives back into helping his father build bridges, he is an engineer after all. Wash’s father passes away, and the torch gets put one hundred percent onto Washington. He is determined to fulfill his father’s dream of building a bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The will be bigger than anything built currently in the cities, and will take years. As Wash puts his all into building this monstrosity, he becomes sick. Eventually he becomes so sick from the work, that Emily is pushed into being his eyes and ears while he recovers. She was happy doing the paperwork, even though some were grumbling at that. Now she is supposed to be his eyes and ears on the worksite, as well as give orders, how is that going to work?
Emily has to break many barriers and fight to prove herself, and that her husband is still behind it all, just that he physically cannot be on site. She steps into a role that no other woman has. Men and workers are relying on her for everything with this bridge. Demands are made for Wash to come back to the worksite or there may be repercussions, such as he being removed.
Emily is so deep and entrenched into this bridge that she cannot let that happen. With the help of a favor called in from a male friend, she proves her worth and over comes obstacles put in her way being a female. As things progress, Emily has taken the reins full in her hands. Wash, due to his illness has traveled back home and the two of them only correspond occasionally about the construction.
She has taken it upon herself to read Wash’s books, to learn the math. The different symbols, the calculations, the construction terms and no one seems the wiser that she is essentially running and building this all. But as she begins to feel she has become something as a female, right under men’s noses her marriage is falling apart and temptation is near her, as rumors cross lips.
One of New York’s, still standing architectural icons is still standing today, and the story behind the wife of the engineer is quite amazing. This was a very well written book. Very detailed and quite amazing that Emily didn’t just give up when it seemed that Wash had. She must have even a very smart woman to have learned all of that scientific and mathematical formulas as well.
I recommend this book for anyone who loves to read about historical architecture.
I really enjoyed reading about Washington & Emily Roebling. Emily is the true heroine of this book & the bridge, without her the bridge wouldn’t have been finished. The only part I didn’t like, was about P.T.Barnum, the author expounded on their relationship, that wasn’t true. They were in the same circle of friends, and I’m sure he helped with financing the bridge, but they didn’t have a relationship. Emily gave up her dreams for Washington. He basically left the marriage for almost 3 years, returning to Trenton, and his vacations to the New England states, where he fished and painted. While Emily was left to finish his project. I wish the author would have expounded more on Emily’s later life after the bridge. On my own I researched where she became a lawyer, and died at a young age of cancer.
Loved this book! Not only is this story about Em & Wash building bridges together but with their family but also it shows the toll that building bridges takes on their marriage. They both loose themselves in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and Wash almost looses his life to the bridge on more than on occasion. Its a history love story twined together with the Brooklyn Bridge. Great read for historical fiction readers.
I recieved an ARC copy through NetGally and these opinions are my own.
The Engineer’s Wife
Tracey Enerson Wood
Sourcebooks Landmark, Apr 2020
352 pages
General Fiction, Women’s Stories, Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction
Provided by NetGalley/Pub
The cover is totally appropriate for the story, eye-catching, and very attractive. Using the old sepia-toned photograph for the bridge and then adding color to it makes this a wonderful cover for this book about a landmark that was built back when it was indeed before its time and stood the test of time. Putting a female figure front and center in the picture is also representative of what happens in the story as Emily Warren Roebling takes the stage front and center in our story and indeed in the history of this bridge, as our story is based on the actual history of the building of this bridge.
Emily is deeply involved in the fight for women’s rights and the whole women’s suffrage movement. She is totally committed to the cause and she is determined to help make a change.
Wash, Emily’s husband, and his father are engineers. Their company is newly involved in building a bridge that many think can’t be built. Wash’s father is injured beyond working. Wash takes over the project, but he has health issues and his health is further compromised by his own neglect during the construction of the bridge.
Through this and other circumstances, Emily is forced to completely abandon her own commitments and take over his position by proxy as first engineer on the bridge project. Emily’s knowledge of this sort of mathematics is from her own self-teaching of reading some of Wash’s college books and some help from a new friend in the business. Emily is an intelligent woman, to begin with, and learns things quickly. What she doesn’t know, she makes sure she has the right help. As the bridge rises and Wash’s health fades, life goes on. Emily meets some extraordinary people. Life for Emily opens up in a way she could never have imagined. Her marriage suffers as her husband imagines things about her relationships. He moves back to his family home. Eventually, some of his accusations drive her to make some of them true as she seeks support from his emotional battering. All this time, the bridge rises and Brooklyn gets joined to Manhattan. The world goes wild over the achievement and Wash takes all the credit for it, though he hasn’t worked on the project for quite some time. Emily has done all the work and made all the decisions.
The project is done. Her husband is gone. There is nothing more for Emily to do. Will she recognize the woman she has become, the woman that life has forced her to become? What will she do now? Which way will she turn? I think I’ve made this sound like a short book, but this whole project took years to build and the story covers the whole time and with over 350 pages you can bet it does a good job of it! I tried not to give away any of the juicy bits. I totally recommend this excellent book to anyone who likes stories about women who survive what life has to throw at them.
This book is amazing! I love reading non-fiction accounts of engineering feats, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge is no exception, But reading this historical fiction account, really brings out the human side, even though, yes, some is made up, but that’s okay with me, because the point is, the engineering feat, and this one was so amazing. And the author did a great job describing how the bridge was built. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves reading about how bridges are built. I could not stop looking at photographs of the bridge as I was reading. Picturing the people building it. Thank you for this book, Ms. Wood!