Mrs. Lee & Mrs. Gray

Love (Carolina Gold), known for her works of historical mystery and romance, takes on a new challenge in this biographical novel, which traces the relationship between the wife of Robert E. Lee and Selina Norris Grey, a woman enslaved by the Lee family, between 1827 and 1873. Mary Custis Lee, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, grew up at Arlington, a plantation that also was home to 60 enslaved adults and children. Mary and her mother were both members of the Colonization Society, working to buy freedom for the enslaved and send them to Liberia. They also took the radical step of educating the people they owned, teaching them to read and write. One of Mary’s most eager pupils was the young Selina Norris. While Mary weds Robert E. Lee and begins her life as military wife, Selina becomes a housekeeper at the house in Arlington and marries an enslaved man. The two women maintain their unlikely friendship through letters and sporadic visits. During the Civil War, Mary entrusts the care of Arlington to Selina. Love writes that her inspiration for the novel was “to bring Mary Anna Randolph Lee out of the shadow of her iconic husband... and to explore the friendship between Mary and Selina.” She succeeds on both counts, creating a sympathetic portrait of these two women that both engages and educates the reader. [em](June) [/em]