Review: Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray

Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray

Blurb from Goodreads:

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating and richly dramatic novel about American heroine Frances Perkins, who pulled the nation out of the Great Depression.

Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference.

When she’s not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell’s Kitchen, Frances throws herself into the social scene in Greenwich Village, befriending an eclectic group of politicians, artists, and activists, including the millionaire socialite Mary Harriman Rumsey, the flirtatious budding author Sinclair Lewis, and the brilliant but troubled reformer Paul Wilson, with whom she falls deeply in love.

But when Frances meets a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a tea dance, sparks fly in all the wrong directions. She thinks he’s a rich, arrogant dilettante who gets by on a handsome face and a famous name. He thinks she’s a priggish bluestocking and insufferable do-gooder. Neither knows it yet, but over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House.

Frances is destined to rise in a political world dominated by men, facing down the Great Depression as FDR’s most trusted lieutenant—even as she struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood. And when vicious political attacks mount and personal tragedies threaten to derail her ambitions, she must decide what she’s willing to do—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to save a nation.

My Review:

I am sorry to say that I didn't know much about Frances Perkins before reading this book but wow, she was an amazing woman!  This was pretty much historical fiction at its best -- it felt familiar in the way it was written but also I learned so many new things.  I wouldn't change anything about this book and I cannot recommend it enough -- Frances Perkins is a worthy subject!

Becoming Madam Secretary comes out next week on March 12, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!  

THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT WAS OVER, THEY said. The republic, ruined. Democracy, done. It lay in broken, cracked-open pieces like the drought-afflicted farmland in the heart of the country.

Trampled under the sole-worn shoes of thirteen million jobless in the breadlines. Crushed under the weight of the economic depression and buried under collapsing banks.

Some cried out for a dictator like that swaggering bully Mussolin in Italy. But my countrymen elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt-man who couldn't walk, much less swagger.

They summoned him to save America, and in turn, he summoned me . . . .