Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese

 Isobel Gamble is a Scottish immigrant who comes to the United States, specifically Salem, Massachusetts, in the early 1800's.  She is a seamstress and her family is known for that and for being the relatives of an infamous woman, the first Isobel in the family who was tried as a witch.  Isabel married Edward Gamble and suspects she made a mistake.  He is a gambler and an addict and her introduction to married life has not been pleasant.  On the trip over, he serves as the ship doctor and only a few days after they land, takes off again with the ship, leaving Isobel t make her way as she can.

She finds there is prejudice against the Scottish there but slowly she begins to settle in.  She finds friends in the black family the next farm over and with other serving girls and seamstresses.  She finds a job in a dress shop but the owner is cruel and claims Isobel's work as her own, making Isobel's dream of opening her own shop impossible.  Isobel is slowly being pulled under when she meets Nathaniel.

Nathaniel Hathorne is from one of the town's most famous families.  He feels pressure to live up to his family name and never bring disgrace to it although he disapproves of his forebears including a judge in the Salem witch trials.  He and Isobel are drawn together from their first glance and eventually start an affair.  When Isobel becomes pregnant, she must either get a commitment from Nathaniel or find a way to survive on her own.

This is a retelling of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  The author believes it may be possible that there was a real Hester in Hawthorne's life as the rest of his novels are based on his own life and has written a novel imaging what that relationship could have been like.  Along the way, the reader learns about slavery in the North with slave catchers, about fine embroidery in a time that all clothes were sewn by hand and about the mores of Colonial America.  The author is a novelist and journalist and those journalist features are demonstrated in the extensive research she has done for this novel which won many awards.  Readers will be drawn into Isobel's life and wonder what they would have done in her place.  This book is recommended for readers of historical, women and literary fiction.