Defiant Brides

Praise

“An ingenious means of bringing new life to the oldest story in our nation’s past: the American Revolution from the perspective of the young and clear-sighted wives of generals Benedict Arnold and Henry Knox. Tracing the parallel lives of two couples with conflicting loyalties, Nancy Rubin Stuart achieves a you-are-there verisimilitude in Defiant Brides that is rare and not to be missed.”
—Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters and Margaret Fuller
 
“In this lively double-biography, Nancy Rubin Stuart reveals the resilient lives of a leading patriot and a notorious Loyalist: both of them women.
Lucy Flucker Knox and Peggy Shippen Arnold deftly performed the parlor politics that helped to shape the American Revolution in surprising ways.”
—Alan Taylor, author of The Civil War of 1812
 
“Written with verve and compassion, Nancy Rubin Stuart’s portrait of two extraordinary marriages of the American Revolution offers a valuable and moving reminder that even in the most dramatic of public events, private passions prevailed and participants remained, first and foremost, husbands and wives.”
—Marla R. Miller, author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America
  
“A captivating look at two marriages, marked by bold rebellion and fierce loyalty. The wives of traitor Benedict Arnold and Revolutionary hero Henry Knox never met, and died an ocean apart, but Stuart’s story of their marriages, full of love, passion, betrayal, and disappointments, reads like a Hollywood script.”
—Betty Boyd Caroli, author of First Ladies

“An effortless read and a fresh perspective on the American Revolution.” 
—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Stuart… draws on her long experience writing about women and social history to show that strong women have always driven their husbands to perform prominent actions, both good and bad.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“With the seemingly endless parade of books devoted to both founding fathers and revolutionary rascals, it’s nice to see some attention paid to the fervor with which some remarkable women navigated the romantic, political, and wartime challenges of the era.”
—Booklist