The Secret Life of Mrs London by Rebecca Rosenberg | Blog tour Guest Post | @MrsLondonsLover @HFVBT #histfic

 

Published by Lake Union Publishing (30 January 2018)

Available in ebook and paperback

320 pages



This gorgeous cover attracted me straight away and when invited to take part in the blog tour by Amy of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours I couldn’t resist.  I do have a Netgalley widget and although this hasn’t been able to make to my reading pile yet, I am looking forward to it.  The story sounds fascinating.

In the meantime I have a guest post from Rebecca to share.

 

SAD OVER MY MAGIC MAN

The SECRET LIFE of MRS. LONDON: The love triangle between Harry Houdini and Charmian and Jack London

by Rebecca Rosenberg

 

After The Houdinis and Londons met in November, 1915, they kept up a brisk correspondence until Jack London died suddenly and unexpectedly just a year after their meeting. He was only forty years old.

Harry Houdini – photo from wildabouthoudini.com

 

Houdini shot off a telegram to Charmian from their home in New York City. “Papers here report Jack’s death. Please let us know if this shocking truth is founded on facts. Your sincere friends, Harry and Bessie Houdini”.

Londons and Houdinis

The following year, Charmian London went to live in New York City’s Greenwich Village for a while. She had old friends there to comfort her over losing her husband, Jack.

She went to see Houdini’s patriotic magic show. Harry seemed amazed by her healthy, blooming appearance.

Charmian answered defensively. “I refuse to be beaten. I am going to put in whatever years life still hold for me as profitably in the pursuit of happiness as I possibly can. You have lost and suffered. Am I not right in that attitude?”

Afterwards, Charmian wrote Houdini a private letter, without mention of her friend, Bessie.

“Someday, at exactly the right time and place, I shall tell you more about this past year and the other remarkable experience I have had that I really have carved out for myself. This is your letter. Please destroy it. (But don’t forget it.) CL”

Tickets to the Show

In January, Houdini sent her tickets to his new show, where he made Jenny the elephant disappear right in front of the audiences’ eyes. Afterwards, he invited Charmian backstage and treated her with warmth and affection that rekindled her feelings for him. She’d worn white fur and he called her his Lady in White. The chemistry between them sizzled.

Back in her Greenwich flat, she wrote that Houdini said she looked like a girl. Flattering since at six years older than Jack, she’d always felt so much older. She was sure Houdini would call her, but when she didn’t hear from him for several days, she thought she’d misread his signals.
When she did hear, it was an invitation to dine with Bessie and Houdini.

The next morning Houdini telephoned her flat. She wrote in her diary: “HH declaration over the phone rather shakes me up.”

Charmian and Harry started to see each other late in the afternoon or late at night after his shows. Houdini wrote his friend, “Been having a hard time with my private affairs.” While Charmian recorded the ardent affair in her diary with overwhelming passion, swooning, trembling, and stirring to the very depths of their souls. Charmian couldn’t sleep, she was too swept still.

“I’m mad about you.”

Over the winter and spring months of 1918, Houdini professed his deepest desires for the widow: “I’m mad about you. I give all myself to you.” And the highest praise from Houdini, who cherished his deceased mother above all: “I would have told her — my mother — about you …”

The passion of the affair seemed to overwhelm them both. Houdini proclaimed: “Now I know how kings have given up kingdoms for a woman. You are gorgeous — you are wonderful. I love you.” And “You are unreal to me. I don’t even think you have to eat.”

Both of them wrestled with their consciences, over adultery. Houdini didn’t show up for their dates. Charmian would go out with friends instead of seeing him. Arriving at her empty flat, Houdini would write sorrowful messages for her.

Finally, it proved all too much for the two of them. Charmian left New York in April, 1918, and returned to Beauty Ranch by the Transcontinental railroad. She began writing notes for her biography of Jack London.

Houdini and Charmian London exchanged affectionate letters and telephone calls until the end of Houdini’s life, October 31, 1926.

When Charmian heard about Houdini’s death, she wrote in her diary: “Stirred with regret … I scan his lovely picture with a magnifying glass.

Sad over my magic lover … dead.”

 

|   About the Book  |

 

San Francisco, 1915. As America teeters on the brink of world war, Charmian and her husband, famed novelist Jack London, wrestle with genius and desire, politics and marital competitiveness. Charmian longs to be viewed as an equal partner who put her own career on hold to support her husband, but Jack doesn’t see it that way…until Charmian is pulled from the audience during a magic show by escape artist Harry Houdini, a man enmeshed in his own complicated marriage. Suddenly, charmed by the attention Houdini pays her and entranced by his sexual magnetism, Charmian’s eyes open to a world of possibilities that could be her escape.

As Charmian grapples with her urge to explore the forbidden, Jack’s increasingly reckless behavior threatens her dedication. Now torn between two of history’s most mysterious and charismatic figures, she must find the courage to forge her own path, even as she fears the loss of everything she holds dear.

 

|   Author Bio   |

 

Rebecca by Black Carriage with Jack London Winery behind

California native Rebecca Rosenberg lives on a lavender farm with her family in Sonoma, the Valley of the Moon, where she and her husband own and operate the largest lavender-product company in America. A longtime student of Jack London’s work and an avid fan of his daring wife, Charmian, Rosenberg is a graduate of the Stanford Writing Certificate Program. The Secret Life of Mrs. London is her first novel.

 

 

Author Links: 

Website   |   Twitter   |   Facebook   |   Amazon UK   |   Amazon.com   |   Goodreads

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