"...I would have liked to see more of the outside world and the colonial world leak into the house, but rather as a reader I was trapped inside the madness and lies of the Henry household. This was a drama more than a historical fiction. I give it 2 stars because I do love Rinaldi and have loved all her other novels. However this one just happened to fall short of the ball park. On a final note it is important to mention that Rinaldi fleshes out the end of her novel with a short conclusion where she reasons out all the events within her book. THIS BOOK IS FICTION. That is all the epilogue proves. All of the lines that Rinaldi draws between the story that she has created and the actual world are whimsy and nothing else. Everything is a bit of a stretch ( especially the part where Rinaldi tries to reason that Henry Patrick stole the most famous part of his "give me liberty or give me death" speech from his own wives mouth)."