Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

    • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    In Need of a Good Wife
    In Need of a Good Wife
    In Need of a Good Wife
    Audiobook9 hours

    In Need of a Good Wife

    Written by Kelly O'Connor McNees

    Narrated by Kirsten Potter

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A sweeping historical audio of 19th century America about a group of unforgettable women who seek to remake their destinies.
         After Clara Bixby is abandoned by her husband and fired from her job in a New York City tavern, she has nowhere to turn. Though the Civil War has ended, life remains uncertain, especially for single women. But when she reads about Destination, Nebraska--a town populated entirely by bachelors--Clara sees a golden business opportunity. She contacts the mayor with a solution: she will match single women in New York City with homesteading bachelors and bring the brides by rail across the wild frontier. This group of women--who range from an upper-class war widow to a Bavarian immigrant--embark with Clara on an epic journey across America in search of security, a new life, and the possibility of love.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateOct 2, 2012
    ISBN9780385363006
    In Need of a Good Wife
    Author

    Kelly O'Connor McNees

    Kelly O'Connor McNees is the critically acclaimed author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, In Need of a Good Wife, and The Island of Doves. She lives in Chicago with her husband and daughter.

    More audiobooks from Kelly O'connor Mc Nees

    Related to In Need of a Good Wife

    Related audiobooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      The Only Rule

      Jul 13, 2020

      There is only one rule in polite English society, but it is iron clad. Of course, polite English society is a fiction. For one thing, its members are rarely polite. Politeness is for the middle classes rather than those who live off ancestral acres o

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Politics, Princesses, And High-flying Drama

      Jul 21, 2023

      It can be difficult to classify a book which has a cow's rear end on the back cover and, on the front cover, a ruminating cow's front end with a road sign pointing to the mustlive-in towns of Darling and Shaka's Rock. Is the book speculation, literat

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      IN THE MOOD FOR… Grannies

      Nov 16, 2021

      In the oily, plague-ridden back streets of Dunwall, few people can claim to be living their best life as much as Granny Rags. A former aristocrat, Granny Rags has swapped high society for a blissful bohemian existence in the city sewers, with endless

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Weird World Folklore Frenzy

      Oct 6, 2022

      Weird World Folklore Frenzy
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Witch Finders

      Jul 16, 2020

      Beth pulled her cloak tightly around her. It was the very last day of October and the air was damp and chill. Dead autumn leaves lay in deep piles in the woods and smoke curled into the night air from her cottage. Not far to go now. She bent her head

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Weird World Folklore Frenzy

      Oct 6, 2022

      Weird World Folklore Frenzy
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Marmalade Addicts – The Queen, Paddington And Me

      Mar 8, 2023

      ‘If, at some future period of the world's history, men should acquire the art of flying, there can be no doubt that migration would become the custom, and whole nations would change their localities,' wrote Richard Jefferies in 1883. Seville is in my

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Great Read

      May 17, 2023

      Great Read
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Women Of The Palace

      Sep 19, 2022

      At Georgia’s ragged edge stands a causeway made of earth piled by hand atop bricks and tires, long grown over with grass and sandspur and sea oxeye. It is a tenuous ribbon of stability cutting through mud and salt and spartina, connecting land and ri

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Air You Breathe

      Aug 20, 2018

      The Air You Breathe
      23 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      5 New Fantasy Novels Invigorate Old Tropes

      May 18, 2023

      Spell books, dragons, mermaids, fairies and a magic circus all take on new life in the pages of these five enchanting tales hitting shelves in May and June.

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      My Irish question

      Aug 21, 2022

      My Irish question
      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sword Catcher

      Oct 4, 2023

      Sword Catcher
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Second Language

      Aug 14, 2017

      Second Language
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      STEPPING Out

      Feb 12, 2020

      STEPPING Out
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Best Books

      Feb 22, 2022

      Best Books
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Summer Reading Special

      Dec 28, 2023

      The distinctive depth of characterisation shines in this tightly knitted story of therapist Nick and retired solicitor wife Zoe, as they decide to view a deconsecrated Victorian church which is for sale. It’s “even more picturesque than it looked onl

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Ancestor envy ANYONE?

      Aug 31, 2023

      Ancestor envy ANYONE?
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Magnets: Carried through time, lovers seek their purpose.

      Feb 6, 2014

      Moon Colony B, 2213 Former Ponzi-schemer Mary Pillar digs through a trashcan. It smells like rotten eggs and milk. She is elderly and homeless, living in an alley between two eco-efficient skyscrapers. Dust particles dance around her. She has lost ev

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Summer Reading Special

      Dec 28, 2023

      Summer Reading Special
      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Jun 10, 2024

      Books
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Drawn to THE MOORS

      Feb 8, 2022

      Drawn to THE MOORS
      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Our Lady Of The Rockies

      Aug 7, 2023

      Our Lady Of The Rockies
      13 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two

      Oct 30, 2019

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two
      25 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Life So Singular

      Sep 23, 2024

      A Life So Singular
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Evolution Of The Texas Cowgirl

      Aug 26, 2021

      The Evolution Of The Texas Cowgirl
      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for In Need of a Good Wife

    3.5/5

    27 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This was a very enjoyable read. Fascinating story and characters. I couldn't believe how quickly I read through this book.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed this one more than I expected. When a civil war widow in Manhattan overhears a letter from the mayor of a small town in Nebraska lamenting their dearth of wives, she organizes a group of single volunteers willing to marry and begins correspondence with the mayor and their potential husbands. What could go wrong?
    • 3/5
      This is a story about a woman in the east who arrange marriages with men from the west.
      I wasn't totally taken by the storyline or the characters. This is more of a gentle reads. Not my cup of tea.
      I have been spoiled by the likes of Rosanne Bittner and Jodi Thomas.
      Although the writer does have some very interesting scenes and witty dialog there isn't enough to carry the book. Character description was lacking, I did not get who Clara was, her age, it came out later in a quick quip about her feeling like she looked like a scarecrow. But some scenes, like the time Clara remembers after she had her baby were very well written and interesting. I hung on reading in hopes of more of that type of story....
      The book could have been better. The author has a lot of good material, but needs help on focus.
    • 5/5
      Reviewed by: Angie
      Book provided by: Publisher
      Review originally posted at Romancing the Book

      In Need of a Good Wife follows three characters; Clara, who has suffered the loss of a child and her husband who ran away with a laundress. Rowena, whose father went mad and husband went off to war and died, leaving her virtually penniless and alone. And Elsa, a plump laundress whose faith sustains her through everything.

      Clara is a strong woman used to dealing with the hardships of life. I can’t say I overly liked or disliked her…instead I will say I had much respect and admiration for how strong she stays throughout the book. The only time she showed “weakness” was when a migraine threatened to overtake her and Elsa helped her through it. Her husband, George, kept me guessing through much of the book.

      I thought Rowena was going to be the sweet young woman in this novel when I first read her story; instead she’s a cunning, manipulative, backstabbing witch who uses trickery and thievery to get her way. You really hope that she changes her tune, but it takes a long time for her to get her full comeuppance.

      Elsa is the character I loved most in this book. Straight forward, God-abiding Elsa just wants to find her place in the world and live a good life. She has no delusions that she or the man she goes to take care of will fall in love and get married; she just wants to enjoy life. She really grows from a meek woman throughout the book with a little help.

      This is a very well researched and thought out novel. I had a very hard time putting it down once I started reading it as I enjoyed following each woman’s journey throughout. I look forward to reading other novels by this extremely talented author as she doesn’t follow the path most taken, but follows her own.
    • 4/5
      Clara Bixby wants out of New York City. Her baby has died in infancy and her no good cheating husband has abandoned her. To get the money to start over she hatches a crazy plan. She is going to shepherd other ladies looking for their own escape out of the city and on to new husbands in Destination, Nebraska. The mail order brides will find new lives in a prairie town lacking in women. Among the ladies looking to head out west is middle aged Elsa, an immigrant wanting to break free from the laundry even though she thinks her chance at love has passed her by and haughty Rowena, a young beautiful widow who needs to get money to ensure her mentally ill father's continued care. Not everything works out the way Clara has planned and by the time the group arrives in Destination she has a lot of explaining to do. Some love matches occur that were not planned while other that seemed destined fall apart. Couplings and uncoupling occurs as the women try to find their places on the frontier. As Elsa says "Well, I suppose not everyone is cut out for life on the prairie. But some of us are."

      This novel about women trying to make it on the prairie reminded of some of the books I have read and enjoyed by Sandra Dallas. Fans of historical fiction and women's fiction will enjoy this book.
    • 4/5
      I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction--I think I overdosed on it in my tween and teen years. But there are a few writers working these days that I do pay attention to, and Kelly O'Connor McNees is one of them. I so loved her first book, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, I could hardly wait for this new one. It entails mail order brides coming from New York City to the nearly womanless town of Destination, Nebraska in 1866. Clara Bixby, heartbroken over her baby's death and her husband leaving her, hatches this plan when she's also fired from her job as a bar maid. She sends a letter to the mayor of Destination, who answers back that his lonely male constituents are very much interested in investing in wives. This commences in a two state round up of some very, very interesting characters with everything from comedy to tragedy and everything in between. You'll love them or hate them, sometimes at the same time, but you won't forget McNees' delicious cast of characters. I know I won't.
    • 4/5
      In the aftermath of the Civil War, marriageable women far outnumbered men. Add to that number the still young women who were tragically widowed and it is easy to see that in a time and a society where one of women's only options is to marry, many, many women were facing uncertain and impoverished futures. Clara Bixby is one such woman. Her life has not been an easy one. Her debt-encumbered father is long dead. Her husband walked out on her for another woman not long after their infant son died. The tavern where she has worked as a barmaid and cook trying to make ends meet can no longer afford to keep her on. She is in rather desperate straits but she is determined to succeed and make a life for herself. When she reads a newspaper account of a town of bachelors in Destination, Nebraska, she hatches the plan to provide mail-order brides for the men. She writes to the mayor of the town with her intent and many of the men agree to pay Clara to broker marriages for them. Next she goes about finding women willing to leave New York for the rough and remote West to become wives to men they have never met. Carefully vetting the women, she pairs them with the men and starts to prepare for the long journey west as her selected brides correspond with their intended husbands.


      The letters from the men to their prospective brides are wonderful, offering small clues into the dispositions of the men since they are not physically present for the first part of the novel. Each of the women selected for the journey west is described but two women in particular become representative of the whole: Elsa, an immigrant looking for a better life than as one laundress among many in a wealthy and controlling woman's home, and Rowena, a bitter and unhappy widow whose fortune has crumbled and whose father has been committed to an expensive asylum with a disease resembling Alzheimer's. Both women have very complicated reasons for wishing to go to Nebraska with Clara Bixby, not that they have divulged everything to Clara, who forms her own not entirely informed opinions of the women and assigns them specific men accordingly.


      Even with careful vetting of the women, Clara cannot control all aspects of her marriage brokering business and as the women gather and travel west, unexpected and unavoidable calamities occur, leaving Clara in a difficult position with her only option continuing on to Nebraska and explaining the situation to the waiting men. Her original intent had been to see the women settled and then to go further onward herself to find her imagined cottage and slip into a new life. But circumstances dictate otherwise and she must stay in Destination both because her honor requires it and because she is legally bound to do so until everything surrounding the promised brides is resolved.


      Focused primarily on Clara, Elsa, and Rowena, this is an engaging tale about the lengths that some women were driven to in order to move on in their lives, to rebuild and find a future they could look squarely in the eye, even if it meant taking a chance and relying on complete strangers and unknowable circumstances. The men of Destination equally gambled to find a piece of what was missing in their lives, hoping that wives willing to be subjected to the hardships of the new West and homesteading would fill that void.


      Surprisingly, the story took longer to move from New York to Nebraska than might have been expected allowing the reader to come to know Clara, Elsa, and Rowena far better than the men, to understand and sympathize with their individual plights, and to uncover the secrets and heartaches in their pasts. So the women are much less stock characters than many of the men of Destination end up being. The plot rolls along with consistent pacing and although much of the end of the novel is predictable, this is still an interesting look at a time, place, and practice that is not often mentioned in conventional history. In addition to the fascinating look at what mail order brides and other women left in reduced or impoverished states after the Civil War could have experienced, this is also a novel about trust, secrets, friendship, love, and what a little enterprise and determination can yield. It's a quick and engaging read that will appeal to lovers of historical fiction, especially those with a fascination for the grit and determination shown by those who ultimately settled the West.
    • 4/5
      The basics: Shortly after the Civil War, Clara Bixby, whose husband ran off with another woman, reads about Destination, Nebraska in the newspaper, and she realizes it's the perfect business venture for her after she loses her job at a tavern in Manhattan City, New York. Clara writes to Destination's mayor and strikes a deal: she'll provide widows and single women willing to move to Destination to get married if the men will pay for their transport, plus a fee for her services.

      My thoughts: In the past few years, I've realized how much I enjoy tales of the frontier life and homesteading. I enjoy the intrepid characters and their discoveries in these new, desolate lands. In Need of a Good Wife opens in New York, and I enjoyed getting to know the women and share their journey, both emotionally and geographically. The novel is narrated by three women, and I enjoyed the different perspective each woman brought to the story.

      While I instantly connected with each of the three main characters, it took me longer to warm up to the men of Destination. O'Connor McNees took the time and effort to build an entire town of characters, and once I kept them all straight, I further appreciated the richness these characters brought to the story. The features of Destination were vivid, and I pictured the town as a sparse, dusty, small town filled with detail.

      The verdict: In Need of a Good Wife is a gentle tale of homesteading in the post-Civil War. I breezed through its pages and enjoyed the large cast of characters of Destination, Nebraska. While O'Connor McNees introduces the harshness of a rural, farm life in the late 1800's, an aura of hope surrounds the novel, and ultimately, it's a tale of redemption and love.