The Nature Of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

This review originally appeared in the February 2021 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

Young women and a young girl must face stunning truths and summon the courage to survive the devastating wake of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Sophie’s first-person account suspensefully unfolds life-changing events after she comes to America from Ireland for a fresh start. She takes a desperate chance to improve her life as a mail-order bride in San Francisco, but after a promising start with her handsome, yet mysterious and detached husband Martin, and his daughter Kat whom Sophie comes to love, things spin out of control.

Sophie discovers links to two other women whom she comes to care for, and must find wisdom, courage and strength to try and undo damage done to them. But the quake brings havoc, with deadly fires and the swamping of medical resources and public services. Its aftermath is vividly brought to life in “… an orange-gold world of smoke and ash. Above us, hundreds of firefly cinders from an approaching blaze we can’t yet see are alighting on the roof of the pavilion, which is already heartily aflame in several places. I can’t see the other fires—the air all around is a smoldering blanket obscuring everything but what is right in front of me—but I can smell them, feel them, taste them, hear them.” The narrative sensitively draws Sophie’s perceptions of her companions’ emotional pains and fallibilities, which she must deal with to lead them to survival. Sophie is a compelling heroine, forced to confront her own past as she does so much for those she has come to love.

Bestselling author Susan Meissner’s stories of strong women are centered around widely varied historical events such as the World Wars, the Tudor period, the American Civil War, vintage Hollywood, the Medicis of Florence, the Salem witch trials, and the Spanish Flu.