When is an author not THE author? When she’s an American romance novelist.
Having met the brilliant British author of The Radium Girls, Kate Moore, and knowing she was coming out with a new book she couldn’t talk about at the time I met her, I was anxious and eager to read that book, “The Woman They Couldn’t Silence” when I finally saw it advertised.
I knew the reviews all said how spectacular it is; Kate’s Radium Girls had won dozens of awards and acclaims for her story of the women, mostly young, who worked at the factory in Orange, NJ in the early 1940s painting the faces o watches so the numbers cold glow in the dark. No one told the girls the paint was radium and the cause of their broken bones, pains, agonies and terrible deaths.
I also knew Kate was more than a sensational author; I knew she loved theater and wrote The Radium Girls because their story was in play and she was drawn to tell the story of the horrors of their life. I also knew she was an actress, was an editorial director for a leading publishing company in England and had written an earlier book published as “Roses are Red, A Book for Lovers.”
And after meeting and chatting with her, I knew she was an incredibly wonderful person with as much kindness and British sophistication as she had talent in her writing.
The library had a waiting list for the newest historical novel, so in waiting for that, I heard of two other titles by Kate Moore that were in the library, “To Tempt a Saint” and “To Seduce an Angel.” Unusual titles, it’s true, but after the Lovers Book, I figured what the heck.
Starting to read “To Tempt a Saint,” I immediately saw Kate’s different writing style; great, an easy read, set in the 19th century, and interesting. I marveled at Kate’s ability to be able to write in a completely different style. I didn’t know the history of the setting for the story, so I liked learning some more about the English courtiers of the 1800s. But the book had a lot of sex and sex related interludes in it as well and I was surprised that this very proper British wonder woman could write the heartbreaking story of the Radium Girls as well as the sex-laden story of the wealthy in England and their habits.
I wrote to Kate to tell her I had to wait for that newest book, and that I had been thinking of her on a recent trip to Ottawa, Illinois, which Kate had also visited because of the girls working in that city’s radium painting factory as well. I told her how touched I was by the statue in a park in Ottawa commemorating the Radium Girls.
Then I told her how exciting “To Tempt a Saint” was, what a great book it was, and how much I enjoyed her different writing style, even though I was still waiting for “The Women They Could not Silence.”
That’s when Kate wrote back: She referenced the time we met, when I brought Rose Penta from Highlands to chat with her when she was in New Jersey a few years ago. Rose’s mother and four aunts were among the Radum Girls Kate had written so well about and Kate wanted to talk with Rose as well.
So here I was. Praising my favorite author for a book she did not write simply because I admired the fact that she I thought she could write in two different styles. So I researched “the other “ Kate Moore.” She identifies herself as “the American Kate Moore” and does indeed write romance novels, a lot of them, though I do not know how historical they are.
In the meantime, The Woman they Could Not Silence became available at the library, and I began reading immediately.
As much as I loved The Radium Girls possibly in part because it was about a friend’s relatives were the basis of the story, this newest novel is hands down even better!
The Woman They Could not Silence” is set in the 19th century, Civil War era, in Illinois. Elizabeth Packard is a women married for 21 years with six children. Her husband, a preacher, had her committed to an insane asylum because he felt she talked too much, disagreed with him too much, and dared to have her own opinions! Men could do that to their wives in the 19th century in the United States.
But the likes of Elizabeth Packard, housed in an insane asylum or not, would not let this happen and indeed, she would not be silenced. And Kate Moore, the British wonder, tells her story with heartbreaking detail and empathy.
You have to read it! It’s one of those books you simply can’t put down!
That American Kate Moore? She writes well and holds your interest.
But that outstanding British Kate Moore? She is simply spectacular.
