Reading the story of the Mormon beginnings and Brigham Young was definitely not the same stories I was taught in Mormon Sunday school. I tend to agree that the story would have perhaps been better if only the story of Ann Eliza Young was told, but I did get engrossed in the modern-day story as well. I thought Ebershoff did a great job in telling this story that includes the roots of polygamy in the Mormon Church along with a modern day murder mystery in a polygamist cult and how the two stories connect with each other.

I found this to be a real eye-opener! Coming from a Mormon background (I grew up in Utah), this book was very relevant for me. And as Ann Eliza's narrative intertwines with that of Jordan's search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father's death. Soon after Ann Eliza's story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds - a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. A rich account of a family's polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. more » ul husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerf. Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

The 19th wife book review