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Reviewed by C.R. Hurst for Readers' Favorite
Katharine’s Remarkable Road Trip by Gail Ward Olmsted is indeed a remarkable look at the life of a woman ahead of her time. Born in 1830, Katharine Prescott Wormeley possessed an independent spirit rarely seen in women of the 19th century. Her intelligence, education, and wealth allowed her to pursue an unconventional life as a nurse during the Civil War, to create a school for impoverished girls, and to translate many classic French novels. She also had an active love life, though she never married. In this book, we meet Katharine at seventy-seven years old, feeling her time is short, though still strong enough for one more adventure. She travels alone and by car three hundred miles from Rhode Island to her country home in New Hampshire. During this trip, Katharine meets old friends, makes new ones, offers advice, and even saves a man’s life, all the while reminiscing about her past.
I fell in love with the book’s heroine within its first few pages. Gail Ward Olmsted captures the spirit of this flawed and irrepressible woman and creates a wonderful way of telling Katharine’s story through her travels, whereby the author combines historical facts with fictional events to spin an entertaining and inspirational tale. I also appreciated how the author never allows the plotline to sink into sentimentality which would be very easy to do, given the subject matter and the book’s nostalgic framework. But then, I suppose Katharine Prescott Wormesley’s no-nonsense attitude would not allow too much misty-eyed sentiment on the author’s part! If you are looking for biographical fiction that offers a refreshingly frank protagonist and a look at a life well-lived, look no further than Katharine’s Remarkable Road Trip.
