A review by truebookaddict
The Rebel Wife by Taylor M. Polites

4.0

I must get one thing off my chest at the outset. Once again, I find myself very frustrated by how women were treated in the past. In our present times, when a woman's husband dies, she has rights. In most cases, she is the executor of her husband's estate and is usually the beneficiary of the life insurance and/or will. Of course, there are cases where a will may be in probate or a man may not leave anything to his wife (mostly in some cases of wealthy marriages), but for the most part, a woman has the right to her husband's possessions and/or money upon his death without having to worry about a family member (or other person) bullying in on her territory. Not so in ages past and nowhere is this fact more apparent than in The Rebel Wife. Augusta's husband, Eli, has died and she was under the impression that they were a well-off, well-settled family. Not according to her cousin, Judge. But she is getting conflicting stories from him and Eli's trusted and loyal servant as to the truth about the money. And Judge's treatment of Augusta, his literally taking over everything and treating her like she has no rights, is beyond infuriating. Mr. Polites does an excellent job of portraying exactly the situation that would have occurred back then and, although infuriating, it is the reality of the way things were.

Read the rest of my review at my blog: http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/2012/02/book-tour-book-review-rebel-wife-by.html