The American Adventuress

By: C. W. Gortner

Narrated by: Ell Potter

Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins

Release date: 09-20-22

Publisher: HarperAudio

Historical fiction / to review

I did not really know a lot about Jennie..or anything. I know some of the Dollar Princesses to come, but Jennie was one of the first, and what a life!

Jennie met and fell in love with the 2nd son of the Duke of Marlbourough. Some drama there, she being an American, he a nobleman. But they get each other in the end, have two kids, one being a certain Winston Churchill.

And then lots more. She had lots of affair, the most noted one with the future king of England. She still loved her husband, but noble marriages were strange. She also did a lot of things I could not have imagined. Like sending aid and going to the Boer war. Her marriages though, dang she must have been a very fascinating woman. One of a kind.

I do confess, I googled a lot! I just wanted to know things before  and here at least I knew nothing tragic would happen.

An interesting book about an interesting woman.

First time listening to this narrator. Not the most variation among voices, but as this truly was Jennie's story that did not matter. Everything came from her. It was a good fit for a historical fiction and def something you should listen to

Daughter of famed financier Leonard Jerome, Jennie was born in New York City to wealth—and scandal. When her parents separated for reasons that were quickly hushed up, Jennie and her sisters followed their mother to Paris, where the city became their finishing school. Determined to marry her daughters into the most elite families, Mrs. Jerome draped them in the finest gowns by Worth and introduced them at Queen Victoria’s court.

Jenny quickly caught the eye of Randolph Spencer-Churchill, a man-about-town and aspiring politician whose father, the Duke of Marlborough, was one of Britain’s loftiest peers. But although the Marlboroughs’ Bleinheim Palace was grander than Buckingham Palace, the family was cash-poor, and desperate to marry their sons to well-heeled American heiresses like Jennie and her sister-in-law Consuelo Vanderbilt. Jennie wasn’t prepared to stop at a duke’s second son, though. With Randolph’s tacit approval, she became mistress to the Prince of Wales, a celebrated bon vivant and womanizer. Their friendship, which lasted decades, greatly bolstered Jennie’s social fortunes—and Randolph’s career ambitions.

But with great highs came great lows. Randolph’s life was cut short, and after losing him, Jennie dove into a disastrous marriage to George Cornwallis-West, much to the dismay of her two sons, who were the same age as their new stepfather. But as Winston began his own brilliant political career, it was Jennie who proved his most valuable supporter. And when she cast off her second husband and took on a third in the midst of the Great War, the American adventuress truly came into her own.