Belle Cora by Philip Margulies. Doubleday, 2014. Adult fiction.Arabella Godwin is born into a wealthy family in the East in the early 1830's. By 1840, as a young girl, she and her brother Lewis are shipped to extended family who live on a farm and virtually abandoned there. This epic novel tells how the two ended up in Gold Rush California. Belle has fallen in love with Jeptha Talbot who becomes a preacher, but their road to life in California is both rocky and exciting. Twice married, she bears a son who never really knows his mother.
The story is written as though it were Belle's memoir and tells how she ended up as the best known madam in San Francisco and married to handsome gambler Charley Cora. Finally, one day she vanishes. But, did she? Full of details about the growing city of San Francisco, this tale is a tribute to how one woman dealt with tragedy, trouble, poverty and extreme wealth, and became a businesswoman in a man's world.
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