Review: Hidden Wives by Claire Avery

Hidden Wives 
Author:  Claire Avery
Genre:  Literary Fiction
Publication Date:  June 8, 2010
Publisher:  Forge Books
ISBN:   978-0765326898
336 pages
Source:  I received this book for free for my participation in a virtual book tour hosted by TLC Book Tours.  This in no way affected my feelings about the book.

Fifteen-year-old Sara and her beautiful sister, Rachel, are too young to legally drive a car—but are approaching spinsterhood in Utah’s secret polygamist Blood of the Lamb community. Having long since reached the “age of preparedness,” they will soon be married off to much older men chosen by the hidden sect’s revered Prophet.


As Sara, chosen to become her uncle’s fifth wife, grows more distraught over her impending incestuous marriage, she begins to scrutinize the faith she has followed blindly her entire life. But for Rachel, who will be married to one of the many powerful community leaders vying for her hand, disobeying the Prophet means eternal damnation. Her friendship with the newest member of the community, the young and handsome Luke, starts as an attempt to save his agnostic soul, but ends with the pair falling helplessly in love. When Rachel is forbidden to see him, her absolute faith in the Prophet is severely tested.


When Rachel’s future husband is finally announced, violence erupts, and the girls must find the strength to escape the only life they have ever know…before it’s too late.


Claire Avery has woven a stunning tale that could be ripped from today’s headlines. Shocking and empowering, Hidden Wives is a page-turning debut that will stay with the reader.

My Thoughts:

This book is utterly stunning in its execution.  The prose is fluid and engaging.  The characters are fleshed out so well and with such precision that I felt myself completely immersed in their world, actually feeling like I was there, living their lives.  The plot flowed seamlessly from one scene to the next, carrying the reader page by page into Sara and Rachel’s world, showing us their young innocence and blind faith in the only life and religion they have ever known.  

I admit to not knowing very much about the faith surrounding polygamy.  I have seen the tv specials with the young girls who got out.  I watched America’s Most Wanted when Warren Jeffs was captured and charged.  These things seem so far removed from my own life that it is hard for me to fully understand what young girls have to live through in this type of environment.  It truly breaks my heart.  I felt so much sympathy for the characters of Sara and Rachel and what they had to go through in their young lives.  But, they didn’t know any better.  They didn’t know that this wasn’t “normal” life.  I really feel like I received an education on polygamy from reading this book.  The author seems very knowledgeable about the subject and presented it in a way that was interesting and added, instead of detracted, from the overall story.  I think these descriptions of the history behind polygamy added to my understanding of the cult-like mentality that the Blood of the Lamb community seems to have.  It also helped me see how these young girls are brainwashed into blindly believing their faith and they are not allowed to question or say a negative thing about it.  These girls have no freedom.  They are trapped.

When a new family joins the Blood of the Lamb community (read: cult), Sara and Rachel immediately befriend young Luke who is around their same age.  Luke is baffled by his father’s insistence that their family join the Blood of the Lamb community and he just wants to get out and rejoin “normal” life.  Through conversations with Luke, the “celestial testimony” that 15 year old Sara is to marry her 50+ year old uncle, and the 17 “celestial testimonies” for 16 year old Rachel’s hand in marriage (yes, 17 men had testimony from God that he is to marry Rachel), the girls eventually come to see their faith in a new light.  When Rachel’s husband is announced, an event so tragic and violent changes Sara and Rachel’s lives forever and will have them questioning everything they know.

This is a superbly written novel that I was mesmerized by.  I could not put the book down.  Page after page, I was entranced by the author’s writing style, needing to know what happened ne
xt, how Sara and Rachel’s lives ended up.  Loved the book and would definitely recommend to others.  It is definitely Crazy Amazing!!
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