By Dorothy R. Vinson
Special to THE DAILY

Author Barbara Hambly opens this novel in 1912 and then goes back through time to the late 1700s — a most unusual beginning. Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Sally Hemings and Dolley Madison are Hambly’s chosen historical figures who lived between 1731 and 1840.

Each of these women were challenged in various ways in tests of skills, abilities and compassion for survival during early American history.

Hambly focuses on each of these four women in close-up fashion. As you read about their lives, you begin feeling you are peeking into their personal diaries.

The reader knows the conversations are invented by the author to reveal what data she has discovered in her research, but their secrets and feelings are so intimate, the reader may feel uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, the places and times of this historical perspective gives the reader the impetus to keep turning the pages.

At the beginning of the book, the reader is drawn into the mind of Dolley Madison as she considers her choices at a crucial point during the War of 1812.

How long should she remain in the White House, awaiting the president’s return? Should she evacuate before the British army invades the capital, as everyone is urging her to do? Should she save what she can of the White House’s valuable contents?

They are already packed and ready to move, but Mrs. Madison does not feel she should retreat before the president returns.

In another close-up, Martha Washington was faced with so many of her husband’s absences, she began to wonder why she was forced to make so many decisions without George. Her feelings of isolation gave her great difficult and she questioned why this was the outcome of her life.

Abigail Adams was filled with deep anger on the Tory press’ attacks on her husband. She suspected it was caused by the factions following Thomas Jefferson. She believed her husband John had been betrayed by his esteemed friend and colleague.

A yellow fever epidemic had spread throughout Philadelphia and Boston, and to be with her husband she crossed the Atlantic to France. However, to her exasperation, Jefferson was constantly in disagreement with her husband.

Poignant life of Sally Hemings

Probably the most difficult story to get a close-up of is of the poignant events in the life of Sally Hemings.

Born into slavery in 1773, she was only a year younger than Patsy Jefferson, and lived with the Jefferson family throughout most of her 63 years.

She was also Patsy’s companion, especially in Paris. Records now show she was Jefferson’s mistress for 40 years and bore him several children, all under extreme discretion. She knew he had promised his wife, Martha, on her deathbed, that he would never remarry, and Hemings accepted that with the passionate hope that all her children would eventually gain their freedom.

Overall, the lack of chronology limits the reader from following history as it occurred with these four notable women, and their many interactions with each other.

As all historical novels seem to take liberties in attempting to insert scenes with actual conversations, Hambly has illustrated that we can learn more about history with this technique, as long as the recognition exists that all of what has been written cannot be proven.

“Patriot Hearts” leaves the reader with as many questions as answers.

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