Blood Red Roses

Hannah Trevor Trilogy #2

by Margaret Lawrence

As a young widow, midwife Hannah Trevor is regarded by the law as unable to support her daughter, Jennet, and at any minute, the eight-year-old may be taken away from her and sold as an indentured servant. When she becomes the suspect in a murder, Hannah must save not only her own life, but that of her daughter's as well.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Romance

480 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Lorraine Margaret Keilstrup, wrote as Margaret Lawrence, Margaret K. Lawrence and M. K. Lorens. Her last name is pronounced KEEL-strup. She was born in February 23, 1945 and died on January 8, 2012 in Freemont, Nebraska at her home.

Keilstrup graduated valedictorian from Fremont High School and then summa cum laude from Midland Lutheran College, now Midland University, in 1967. Keilstrup was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She earned a Master of Arts and doctorate degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, writing a doctoral thesis on The Myth of Cain in the Early English Drama in 1974. She taught there for several years and also taught in Fort Hays, Kansas.

She won several writing competitions during these years and then had plays produced at the Omaha Playhouse and on Nebraska-ETV, before giving up teaching and moving to New York City to pursue a career as a writer and playwright. Her plays were produced by the Hudson Guild and the New York Shakespeare Festival and she was a finalist for the Blackburn Prize in drama.

She wrote scripts for CBS-Universal Studios, notably for "The Equalizer" television series. The episode, "Riding the Elephant," received a superb rating on tv.com.

Keilstrup returned to Fremont to care for ailing family members, and lived in her 120 year old ancestral home, which was originally built by her grandfather in a cornfield outside Fremont and which starred a garden that contained her grandmother's roses and poppies first planted from seeds brought from Flanders Field after World War I. The Keilstrup home is the oldest home in Fremont continuously lived in by the same family.

After her return home, she began writing novels, first as M. K. Lorens and then as Margaret Lawrence.
As M. K. Lorens, she wrote five novels starring featuring Winston Marlowe Sherman, mystery-writing Shakespearan professor, beginning with SWEET NARCISSUS (Bantam, 1990) and ending with SORROWHEART (Doubleday, 1993). As Margaret Lawrence, she wrote three novels starring Hannah Trevor, Revolutionary War era midwife, and a number of other historical novels.
For these novels, she was a finalist for The Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, the UK’s Golden Dagger, and other literary awards. Her books were translated in to a number of other languages for nations like Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic and Japan. She also published poems and short stories.

Known to her friends and family for her intelligence, wit and humor, her deep compassion for others, and for her liking for privacy, she was also known for many creative talents, including her fluency in Danish, German, Spanish and French. She played the piano, composed folk songs, and excelled at Danish papercutting, needlework and quilting. Many of her projects were profiled in magazines. She died on January 8, 2012 at her home in Fremont, Nebraska.

Reviews

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moving the story (this is the second of a series) along about Hannah and Daniel was a bit more important than the murder story. It also was a bit on the slow side.
However, the history of post-Revolutionary War society, the reprisals and the place of women (especially Tory wives) was fascinating.

[Meg Mims · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great second book of the series, if a bit depressing in its accuracy. This is the Revolutionary War at its worst. Be forewarned. Lawrence has a deft hand expanding this world.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sequel was every bit as good as the first book, combining a murder mystery with the brutality of being a woman in 1780s America. It's definitely the early days of Shay's Rebellion, an atmosphere we're in these days as well, 'cuz Capitalism.

It's a few months after the events of the first book- Hannah is the same proud woman, keeping her distance from Daniel despite the fact that they're mutually in love. She (understandably) can't trust her heart, and most of all can't trust men in the world, and honestly, she's just too busy trying to stay alive.

Literally, it turns out, when she ends up at the center of a murder investigation, thanks to corrupt, misogynistic men in power.

Jennet finally gets some character development, which was lovely, as does Charlotte. We meet some good characters amid the horrible ones, but this book still has some very bleak moments. In fact, I took a star off because some of the hopeful moments seem fantastical, like it requires an obvious Deus Ex Machina to inject positivity into the plot. That meant those moments were a little too convenient, but also vital to keep this from becoming even more horrifying in places.

Overall, I enjoyed it and will be finishing the series (I hope). I expect Hannah won't be able to catch a break in book 3, either. It'd be nice if Daniel had to deal with the shitstorm, for once, but I suspect Hannah's suffering is meant to make us understand the power she wields in her stubborn independence. And I have to hand it to her- between her intelligence, stubbornness, and ceaseless compassion for those injured and in pain, she does seem to be able to get out of scrapes!

[Melinda Borie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has such a good ending that it’s a little weird it’s not the last, instead of The Burning Bride (which I haven’t read yet but will soon). I wish I had had the will to reread Hearts and Bones before starting this— it’s been eight years, which is long enough to have forgotten most of the particulars— but I remembered it as validatingly feminist in nature, and this certainly lives up to that. To think this is a twenty year old book! If Margaret Lawrence (RIP) were living now, I think she would have had the same things to say and the same kind of story to tell. I hope to become a Margaret Lawrence completionist in the near future.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Hannah Trevor book I've read. It's a sorta mystery series about a post-Revolutionary War midwife. (I know - where do I find these books?!) I enjoy the period details and the slice of life view of those times. A big theme in the book is what happened to the wives of Tory sympathizers after the war was over - I never thought about that before. The book was interesting from that perspective and is well written, but it wasn't great.

[Shoshana Hathaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blood red roses DB 46974
Lawrence, Margaret, (Margaret K.). Reading time 13 hours, 11 minutes.
Read by Annie Wauters. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Subjects: Mystery and Detective Stories

Series: Hannah Trevor mysteries volume: 2

Description: Maine, 1786. In this sequel to Hearts and Bones (RC 43725), midwife Hannah Trevor's young daughter, Jennet, is being forcibly taken from her to become an indentured servant. Political rebellion is brewing, and violence is spreading when a family found murdered in the woods is identified as Hannah's Tory husband and dependents. Hannah soon becomes the primary suspect. Some violence.
To be honest, I tend to shy away from anything that is classified as “literary”, because, in my view, good literature is far, far more than good writing, and all too often “literary” novels in any genre are pretentious, self-conscious, and are more concerned with how a story is told than with the story itself. So, I began this historical mystery with more than a little trepidation, and found that, yes, it was a little self-conscious, and yes, sometimes the symbolism and literary devices obscured the story being told, but that story, and most of the characters in it, were so powerful that they more than overcame these issues.

This book tells, essentially, 3 stories that are braided very nicely into 1, and none of them could exist without the others. First, there is the mystery and its resolution, and that is handled with subtlety and mastery. The 2nd story involves a very difficult period for the very new United States, and a revolution which could have, and possibly nearly did, end our Republic before it got on to its feet. The 3rd story involves a group of characters, but especially Hannah, a midwife, her deaf daughter, and both her husband and the man she loves. All the stories are so well intermeshed they can’t and shouldn’t be, separated, and the characters are so vividly drawn that those characters make themselves at home in the mind and heart of the reader. True, there are a few characters who are rather too symbolic to be credible, but, fortunately, they have fairly minor parts in the story, so I could consider them embellishments.

What does stand out about this book, though, is the absolutely glorious writing. Don’t get me wrong: I dearly love words, and the ways in which they can be used, but making lovely words just for the sake of making lovely sentences and paragraphs leaves me cold. Here, though, the writing winds around and through the story and supports it, giving it life, breadth and depth, without every trying to overshadow it.

This is the kind of writing that is so richly textured that it engages all the senses. Sometimes it is so beautiful that I had to stop my player, just to allow my mind to re-listen to a phrase and experience it again. Each feature of the story, each object of person in the book is touched and made more than 3 dimensional. Even the weather is a living, breathing, and possibly sentient, character. (no, not really, but reading the descriptions of some storms and fogs makes it feel sentient).

This was an absolutely enthralling, entirely satisfying reading experience, and this is a book which will haunt my memory and pluck my heartstrings for a very long time, I think.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel takes place in the 1780s with a midwife widow, Hannah Trevor, as the key character. This is the second about Hannah's life. In this one, her missing husband shows up under another name but is murdered by someone. And, you guessed it. She is accused of his murder!

Her daughter, Jennet, springs from a romance that Hannah had with Daniel, a wealthy married man whose wife's frail health confines her to her room much of the time. Drawn to each other, their love is the talk of the community. The local sheriff, Trapp, is a cruel opinionated man who is convinced of Hannah's guilt possibly implicating Daniel as well. In addition, Hannah's husband has another wife and family all of whom were cruelly murdered too. As Hannah copes with ostracism in her community and continues her life, she finds that someone wants her daughter and takes her away as Hannah and Jennet attempt to flee from this life.

The tale is fast paced, exciting and fun to read. For me, this is one of those difficult to put down reads.

[Nik Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blood Red Roses is the second book in Margaret Lawrence’s trilogy about Hannah Trevor. I read the first – Hearts and Bones – in 1999. I found Hannah, her main character, very compelling, and the storytelling was excellent. I obtained the two sequels as soon as they were published in paperback. And yet for some unfathomable reason I’ve only now got round to reading them – a matter of some two dozen years later! In mitigation, I have acquired several hundred books still to be read… Unfortunately, I recall little about the first book after such a lapse of time, save that I recall admiring it greatly. (Since that time, beginning in 2008, I have attempted to write brief reviews of the books I’ve read, if only to remind me what they were about, for it is unlikely I will re-read a book when I have so many lingering on the shelves unread).

‘Lucy Hannah Trevor turned thirty-eight years old on that foggy St Valentine’s Day of the year 1786. She had the ripeness of a woman who had borne four children and the unconscious sensuality of one who thinks she has long since cured herself of needing men for more than idle conversation’ (p11, Heart and Bones).

Hannah is a midwife in the town of Rufford, Maine. Three of her children died and her fourth, Jennet is a loving deaf mute, now aged eight. ‘She had listened in vain for the birth cry, and when her aunt laid the girl-child on her belly, Hannah was sure she had given birth to the dead. Even when her hands found the warm, slippery shape of a living baby there, it seemed to her an alien gift that had nothing to do with her own body nor with anyone else in the world – and was more precious, being only itself’ (p47).

Her husband James had abandoned her while she was pregnant with Jennet, leaving gambling debts, and was presumed dead. Hannah’s secret lover was Daniel Joselyn – Jennet’s father.

The three books are written from the omniscient point of view. However, each book begins and ends with an extract from Hannah’s journals in the first person: 1) 14 February 1786 and 22 February 1786; 2) 12 July 1786 and 12 September 1786; 3) 6 November 1786 and 24 December 1786. So the three novels barely cover ten months of the same year – though event-filled months indeed!

A recurring theme is the making of quilts, which Hannah endeavours to accomplish when she is not in conflict with officialdom and some thoroughly unpleasant individuals. And the three books tend to follow a pattern, too.

Each book begins with a prologue. 1) How he killed her; 2) How she made God weep; 3) How he killed the ghost of shame. None of the individuals are either Hannah or Daniel; at this point they are anonymous.

The penultimate chapter headings are relevant: 1) The breaking of hearts and bones; 2) Blood and roses; 3) The refiner’s fire. Each echoes the titles of the relevant books. The book title Blood Red Roses is from a children’s dance.

Interspersed are chapters relating to legal proceedings investigating the murders – they’re all murder mysteries besides being historical novels: ‘Piecing the Evidence’.

When they first met, Daniel’s wife was living in England. Hannah wanted him merely to give her a child; she did not seek love. Yet inevitably love followed – on both sides: ‘His life turned always upon the sight of her – even more intently since the winter, for now he knew her heart better. As she went upon her nursing visits, Hannah was a bright fleck of colour – her hooded red cloak against the winter snow, and in summer, a plain linen bodice and a homespun skirt that might have been dyed in the same pot of cochineal as the cloak’ (p27).

Midwife Hannah was independent, and did not stand for any nonsense. ‘It was no matter of dying; surely Molly’s case was, the midwife judged, more messy than desperate, the girl cried for a nurse if she suffered a hangnail. Hannah could witness, and besides, men always got liverish, and histrionic at bornings’ (p44).

Many of the characters are neatly described. ‘Andrew Tyrell held a long-handled glass to one eye and peered through it. He had spent much of his life poring over badly-printed books and now, at five-and-forty, he could not see more than a yard beyond his nose without a lens’ (p52). And: ‘He was a tall man and heavyset, with a long, lugubrious countenance and grey eyes set deep in his skull, like musket balls in a bore’ (p177). And: ‘Honoria Siwal eyed Hannah down a nose so long and thin it might have served a heron for a beak’ (p217).

And the author’s descriptions of Jennet’s travails are beautifully done: ‘But when there was music, Jennet Trevor seemed to see it in the very air, and something that had slept in her since before she was born awoke and climbed the blank walls of her silence, demanding to be heard’ (p87). And: ‘Hannah could feel the pounding of her daughter’s heart like a fist, slamming, slamming, slamming at the invisible door that locked her out of the world’ (p89). Jennet ‘did not wake from her drugged sleep till near six that evening, but in the clock of her bones it was morning still’ (p278).

This period – like many before and after – was a time where women were considered chattels, second-class citizens, if considered at all. ‘Known and unknown, seen and disregarded. All women are nobody. Poor women are nothing at all’ (p161). [Have times really changed? Women have had to fight for recognition for centuries and now a certain vociferous minority of woke individuals want to eliminate the definition of ‘woman’. Really?] ‘Nothing. I am nothing human. I am a weed to be torn from the world’ (p170).

The murder mystery is resolved.

The times were perilous, violent and in many instances unjust; that’s history for you. Certainly, if anyone is ‘offended’ by factual historical events, then these splendid novels are not for them. For the majority who enter Hannah’s world they will feel they are almost there, and will be moved by her gripping tale.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't as good as the first book (Hearts and Bones) but still captivated me b/c of my interest in the time period. Plus, I'm rooting for Hannah Trevor (the main character) so I want to stick with her to see what happens. As in the first book, this one is a murder-mystery revolving heavily around women's issues such as quilting (both books are named for quilt patterns), midwifery, marriage laws, women in widowhood, etc. I'm going to stick with the series and read the next one too!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel to Hearts and Bones. Hannah Trevor is a widowed midwife who must solve the mystery of a man who was murdered. The only witness to the murder is her eight year old daughter who cannot hear or speak.

[Karen Hogan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Second book I've read by author. I found her first book much more to my liking.

[Maurita Kling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit having trouble figuring out Who was Who in this book! It could be my age or my eyesight, but characters seemed to change places in the middle of paragraphs!
At any rate since I have lived in Maine & familiar with most of the non fictional towns mentioned I enjoyed trying to locate Ruffton etc which lead to more maps etc of the area, which again brought good memories back. Maine is a special place with especially Strong characters. These were very well described in this book, taking place in not just in a Pristine & Primitive setting but at a Time of great Upheaval. I wish I had known much more about that Era while we lived there as it would have helped me believe some of the predicaments these people lived thru in a brand new Nation still very dependent on their former 'Master.' I knew a little about how it started, but not much at all about the immediate Afterwards! A Very tumultuous Time indeed!
This lead me to wonder if this book might make a more easily understood Movie? it surely has the scenery, the characters and the Historical Setting in it's favor!

[Tomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shows a darker side of Revolutionary America.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Lawrence in small doses. The historical perspective into this under explored time (post-Revolutionary America) is something I really appreciate, and Lawrence doesn't pull punches. But she writes in such a flowery and oblique way that at times I just get annoyed. Some of the images are great, such as when a woman's daughter curls up like a squirrel. Some are just pretentious, such as when a woman's lover was born in her, born in her bones.

I think I really notice it because I have a tendency toward pretentious discursions, too. *hangs head*

[Kristína Tóth · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a pleasant surprise as I was not expecting a lot from the book. I was judging by the cover, I admit :D I liked the style in which it was written, several text types: report,interview, diary entry, letter, etc. It is a very unusual crime story. Definitely recommended

[Lela Ellison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has long been one of my favorite mysteries and it still is. She also wrote 'The Ice Weaver,' which I like nearly as much as Blood Red Roses.

[Victoria Grusing · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very Dry. Could not finish after half way.