Request #236

 I read it in 1997, but I don’t think it was newly published. It was children’s (probably today it would be YA). In any case, it was in my elementary school’s library. I think the author’s last name was near the beginning of the alphabet. I think it had “bride” in the title.

It’s a historical fiction set in the West. The main character is a girl (teenager?) who is an orphan and lives with her aunt and uncle. They’re not abusive, but they’re not nice either. They force her to marry this old man. Their wedding night he dies and she’s left a widow. The book is about her growing up and realizing that she’s actually got power – that she doesn’t have to let her aunt and uncle dictate her life, that she’s wealthy now (the husband was wealthy I think) and that she can do what she wants. There might have been a hint of romance at the end, but I don’t remember.

Two scenes I do remember: the night after the husband’s funeral? or the night after he dies? the aunt and uncle come over and try to force her out of her bed to sleep on the floor and she’s like “no, this is my house, my bed, you’re not forcing me to sleep on the floor while you and your kids who are younger than me sleep in beds.”

The other scene is her buying fabric to make a new dress and she sees this white fabric with ivy on it and wants to buy it and at first I think the shopkeeper is saying that she should still be in mourning, and either it’s been a year and she says so or she says that they weren’t even married a full day so she’s not a mourning widow. In any case, she buys the fabric and feels good about it.  Bargain Bride by Evelyn Sisley Lampman solved by Lost Classics Reader Sashutch!