From My Blog...[return][return]Having eclectic reading tastes has many advantages, one of them being that I come across a variety of books I can, without a doubt, categorize as one of the best I have read in whatever the genre may be. Hidden Wives by Claire Avery is just such a book. A riveting and emotional story, Avery takes the reader deep inside The Blood of the Lamb community, a polygamist sect in Utah, telling the story through two sisters, recently turned 15-year-old Sara and her almost 1 More...

Some authors have a story to tell but lack the ability to tell it. Some authors are prolific writers but have no story to tell so they blather for pages about nothing. Then there are those books that capture you completely with not only a compelling story but a voice that holds the reader's attention for hours on end.

This is one of those books.

Sara and Rachel are best friends and sisters. When I say sisters, I really mean that they share a father but not a mother. They live in a fundamentalist s More...

Edit: After some thought, I'm lowering my rating on this book. Although I enjoyed reading it, the good and bad of the characters are too extreme and there isn't the depth or complexity I was expecting. Still, it is a very readable novel.

Rachel and Sara are sisters, well, actually half-sisters, living with their mothers, father, siblings, and half-siblings in a secluded polygamist Utah community (sound familiar?). Except for a short stint in a public school, they know nothing of life outside thei More...

What I Loved: This story was gripping. I was literally yelling in my head "get out" and "get out now". The authors are very good at portraying this community as one that could exist in any part of the US. While everything is fictional, it all seems very real. They do not try to "sugar coat" the different types of people that may exist in these communities and they do not "vilify" them either. The characters are who they are: good, bad, or indifferent (and there is a little of each type in this c More...

I was the lucky recipient of a free goodreads advance copy of this novel. (thanks, goodreads!) I was not knowledgable on the topic of cult religions or plural wives prior. I found these well developed aspects of the book to be quite interesting and actually would have liked for the authors to have delved even deeper. The scenario they framed was believable to me. The wives would have to be true zealots to put up with that lifestyle. Being a parent, it was hard for me to imagine the wives allowin More...

I was completely mesmerized by the story of Rachel and Sara, two sisters raised in a polygamous fundamentalist Mormon sect. Though they have been immersed in the bizarre dogma of their religion their entire lives, circumstances eventually persuade them to make some serious decisions about remaining with a community that condones plural and often underage marriage. As events unfolded, I became more and more engrossed in every aspect of their lives. Sara wants nothing more than to continue her edu More...

Claire Avery's Hidden Wives presents a piercingly emotional landscape through Sara and Rachel, two sisters coming-of-age in The Blood of the Lamb community - a fundamental polygamist sect in Utah. At 15 and 16-years-of-age, Sara and Rachel are bordering on spinsterhood. Most "girls" receive their marriage confirmations as early as 13-years-of-age through the "law of placing." The more wives a man has, the more likely he will attain the status of a god in the afterlife. It does not take long for More...

Rachel and Sara are fifteen, an age by when they should be married. In Utah's secret Blood of the Lamb community, that is. When the book begins, their father is taking them to see the prophet to decide who they should marry. Sara is to be wedded to her uncle, while Rachel has received sixteen "testimonies". (For a marriage to be fixed, a male should receive a testimony or a message from God to marry someone.) Rachel's sixteen testimonies send the same message to both her father, who believes Rac More...

21st January 2011

What an interesting book! I thoroughly enjoyed it whilst at the same time being repulsed by it! I know little about the Mormon religion or indeed the differents sects that have sprung up around the belief but this was a real eye opener. I was shocked by the heartrending situation that the girls found themselves in and I would like to think that it is not the norm, however from what I have read elsewhere I feel that it is more common than generally believed. I thought that Americ More...

I really enjoyed this book, especially since I had to remind myself that it was written by two sisters who weren't Mormons. If you love Big Love on HBO, then you’ll really enjoy reading Hidden Wives by Claire Avery. Written by two sisters who were raised in a fundamentalist midwestern Catholic community, Hidden Wives captures the perfect blend of fear, confusion, blind faith and twisted love of a polygamist cult members in the great state of where else–Utah.
I'm hosting a giveaway for 3 autograph More...

“Hush, Hush, Sweet Sister-Wives”

Unspoken scandals run beneath this secret polygamist community in Utah like coal and iron run through Pennsylvania.

Hidden Wives tells the riveting story of Rachel and Sara, two 15-year old sisters, empowered by their will to live, love…and survive.

I received this book from Claire Avery, the pseudonym of a sister author tag team. I spent a lot of time holding my breath while reading this over the past week!

However, I do give advance warning of some graphic pass More...

This book succeeds with overkill in painting an ugly picture of polygagamy- child abuse, spouse abuse, rape, incest, suicide, PTSD, racism... and wraps it up too neatly for me to really give this book high marks. What the heck is the bit about the speech impediment too- that is miraculously healed. This novel tried to squeeze too much in for me to really enjoy.

First of all, the young girls who are the subject of the story, Rebecca and Sara, do not in fact becomes wives, hidden or otherwise. It is definitely not an "insider" view of a Fundamentalist LDS sect in rural Utah; the authors (2 sisters writing under a pseudonym) are Catholic. While some stuff rang true from my other reading on this topic, some of it seemed way way off the mark. The story started well -- Sara, brilliant but being held back from access to an education; Rebecca, beautiful and de More...

Hidden Wives is a work of fiction but much of the content is based on the organization known as the FLDS or Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Long name for an organized group of pedophiliac old men.Hidden Wives tells the story of two sisters 15 and 16 who have the same cruel misogynistic father but different mothers.They are actually at 15 hand 16 rather old becoming celestial brides as most of their friend have already been married off by 12 and 13.I had to read th More...

I felt like there was a lot of sensationalism in the plot. Like it wasn't just that there was a baby with a birth defect because there's a lot of close relatives having children, it had to be a baby whose insides were coming out, and the father walks into the birthing room with a shovel and a garbage bag. And it wasn't just that marriages were political exchanges, but the girl has a huge panic attack when she overhears two men basically trading daughters.
The characters thought processes, especia More...

At the ages of 15 and 16, Sara and her sister Rachel are among the only young women left in Blood of the Lamb who have yet to be married. The prophet of their sect is the man who will choose their future husbands. Sara, who has an insatiable appetite for knowledge, has slowly come to the realization that the principles she has been brought up to believe are faulty. Exactly the opposite, Rachel is determined to be the perfect wife and mother to her future husband and child, despite the fact that More...

Hidden Wives was a fascinating, though at the same time, depressing novel. Mari and Michelle very aptly crept into Sara's and Rachel's minds to bring the reader their emotions and thoughts about the type of life they were born to, raised in, and expected to embrace. The first sentence had me glued closely to the pages to find out the why and how. The pain and angst are so vivid I felt them as if they had been done to me, the teach so clearly protrayed, I almost understood them.
The story is told More...

I find it very difficult to believe that Claire Avery did not have first-hand knowledge into the goings on of these multi-wife communities. Her descriptions are so clear that I can see the places her characters go. I feel what they feel and see what they see. Her characters are also believable, scary, and loveable. On the other hand, however, knowing that this is not a first-hand account, I wonder how much of this book is based on prejudices, and how much is based on actual, documented events. I More...

This book was absolutely amazing. I have never read a book before and went through so many emotions all in 300 pages.
The book is about two sisters, Sara and Rachel. Sara is the plain one, the one that finds out that at just the age of fifteen she is going to be married off to her Uncle. Rachel is the beautiful one, that has numerous men wanting to marry her.
Sara and Rachel live in a Polygamist cult. Sara is unhappy all the time, she knows deep down that something is wrong with the way they are l More...

My Thoughts:
I'm going to review this one a bit differently today. I'm would like to share my immediate thoughts and impressions as I was reading this thought-provoking book.

* action begins immediately as the reader is thrust into the heart-pounding lives of Sara and Rachel.
* wonder how the men would like it if the women had all the rights, choices, and power. Polygamy would die out...that's what would happen!
* Law of Chastity: forbade sexual acts while the woman is expecting. What a FARCE! More...

Hidden Wives, by Claire Avery

"Hidden Wives" is the story of Sara and Rachel, two sisters living in a polygamist cult called the Blood of the Lamb. At the start of the book, their father takes the sisters to the prophet to receive their marriage confirmation - at 16 and 15, the sisters are practically spinsters. Most girls in the Blood of the Lamb are married by 13.

Sara doesn't fully believe the cult's practices, especially when she learns the prophet has received 16 marriage proposals for her p More...

Hidden Wives is a novel of survival. Sara and Rachel are sisters who face more than their fair share of horrors growing up in a fundamentalist Mormon community, living under rules not merely strict but tyrannical and abusive. And blind obedience is mandatory. But as their situations worsen, as they begin to see cracks in the rigid structure of their community—all the greed, hypocrisy, and cruelty there is there—Sara and Rachel realize that they simply have no choice but to leave.

There are stomac More...

I'll admit that I have an unhealthy fascination with polygamy and culture. I thoroughly enjoy Big Love and Sister Wives, so when I saw this book, I just had to grab it. It was a very decent book, quick read that really did dive into the culture from the perspective of two teenage girls in the community. If I could give it 3.5 stars, I would, but it didn't quite make 4 stars to me. I would also have liked to have had book club questions and additional details from the authors about their own live More...

For me, this book was suspenseful and tragic. I warn you now, Hidden Wives is not for the faint-hearted.

The story centers around a fundamentalist Mormon Church in which fifteen year old girls are forced to marry men who claim that god has led them to be bonded for eternity. Sara, one of the main characters, finds herself engaged to her uncle. The book deals with heavy subjects such as abuse, massive birth defects due to incest, and rape, all under the umbrella of religion. As an elementary teach More...

Amazing, amazing novel -- so many thoughts running together. Will have to dry the tears before I write this review.

Okay, I have had time to write the review now. You can also find the review posted at The Daily Dose: http://dailydose-fantasyromance.blogs....

I picked up this book because I found the authors fascinating and after reading the blurb on the back of the book at the tea, I was definitely curious. We're all aware of extreme religious sects and we see the stories in the news. We're alway More...

How the HELL is this book rated so high on goodreads? What started off as a story about Mormon fundamentalists in Utah quickly turned into a trashy novel full of every Mormon stereotype ever created. Incest, rape, children being married off to old men, prominent racism, the removal of young boys from the community, sister wives...these are all real parts of the famed LDS community of fundamental Mormonism, and set the tone for a lot of the horror stories that we recognize from news media and oth More...

Claire Avery, the pen name for two sisters who wrote this debut novel together, have written a page-turning exploration into the world of a polygamist sect based in Utah. The sisters' interest in and knowledge of extreme religions is portrayed through fictional characters Sara and Rachel, two young members of this sect. After spending their lives with The Blood of the Lamb society, the sisters endure many horrific experiences before deciding to flee the only home and faith they have ever known, More...

This book.. what can I say? An amazing debut book.

This is the story of two teenage girls, Rachael, and her sister, Sara, who have been raised in a Fundamental Polygamous community. The Prophet decreed they are soon to be promised as wives to the powerful men of the church that rules the Blood of the Lamb community.
Sara is promised to her much older uncle, and she begins to question the twisted beliefs as she is pulled further away from the real world by her family and church. Meanwhile, her pret More...

A goodreads First Read win.
I got this book yesterday and picked it up to look at it because I was curious (I am just about done with another book) and I ended up reading the WHOLE thing. Actually, there were a few parts I skipped and they are why I can't give this a higher rating. The story is intense and sad. It is a fictional story of two girls in a polygamist family in a cult in Utah. All I could think for the first part of the book was "by their fruits ye shall know them." This groups' frui More...