America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie

If like me you are addicted to history, this book is a must. It is eminently readable and was well researched. I am a stickler, even in historical fiction, that the facts be meticulously stuck to and when I fact-checked things I questioned, I found that the authors had been painstaking in sticking to the main truth. Of course, conversations must be invented but I found them believable and I had a very hard time putting this book down.

This is the story of Thomas Jefferson told through the eyes of his beloved elder daughter, Patsy. Since the reality is that it was she who shaped his legacy through her editing of his papers and the destruction of anything that she didn't feel fit the narrative she was trying to create, it gives us a chance to fill in a few blanks that she is responsible for.

That Thomas Jefferson was one of the great men of the American Revolution is unquestionable but he was a flawed individual who was a slave owner and at times all too self-centered to be a really good father and husband. That he killed his wife through constant pregnancy is doubtlessly true and calling it love doesn't diminish the truth. That he fathered many children on her half-sister a slave is also left in little doubt though no mention is found in Jefferson's official papers.

What I loved about the book was the relationship of Sally Hemings and her niece Patsy, which seems quite natural in even though we are left in little doubt that Patsy knew about her father and Sally.

Through it all, we get to know the man behind the legend and the women who were a part of his life.

This was one of my favorite books of all time and I highly recommend it.