She weaves her riveting tale to give her fragile daughter a reason to live, even as her own strength wanes. Wollstonecraft’s urgent story of loss and triumph forms the heartbreakingly brief intersection between the lives of a mother and daughter who will change the arc of history and thought. In radiant prose, Samantha Silva delivers an ode to the dazzling life of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the world's most influential thinkers and mother of the famous novelist Mary Shelley. But at its heart, Love and Fury is a story about the power of a woman reclaiming her own narrative to pass on to her daughter, and all daughters, for generations to come.
Silva skillfully portrays the remarkable life of a remarkable woman: Mary Wollstonecraft ... Silva’s grasp of the craft of historical fiction is impressive; she’s attentive to details of late 18th-century life as well as emotional authenticity. Recommend this novel to fans of historical fiction featuring strong women, especially those interested in the roots of feminism.
... stirring and occasionally hagiographic episodes ... While the novel is decidedly an homage it is also a study of false steps and evolving ideas ... The confidences between the women are the most purely imagined in the novel and also the most moving, and they help us understand what another character means when he tells Mary, 'You make everyone’s world bigger.'
