Fowler's latest, a historical fiction novel that puts the spotlight on three of John Wilkes Booth's siblings, Rosalie, Asia, and Edwin, is outstanding. Mixing fact, rumor, and fiction, she renders an engrossing portrait of a troubled and complex family haunted by the divisive issues of the time, alcoholism, the supernatural, and fame.

It starts with Junius Brutus Booth, the Shakespearean actor/patriarch and alcoholic who had 10 children with Mary Ann Holmes, who was thought to be his only wife, until his first wife reveals herself & harasses the family for years. As the sibling about whom very little is factually known, Rosalie becomes a spinster/motherly type in Fowler's eyes, tormented by the early deaths of Mary Ann, Frederick & Elizabeth and especially the death Henry Bryon at 11 from smallpox. She routinely hears the voices of their ghosts chiding her from the graveyard by the family farm. Throughout a life of sewing, cooking, cleaning, and living off her siblings, Rosalie laments her lack of romantic love & independence but soothes her turmoil with alcohol. Edwin, the second oldest son, starts as the forced caretaker of his drunkard & traveling actor father, but eventually becomes the lauded theater star Junius thought he was & John had hoped he'd be. Also succumbing to the lure of alcohol, Edwin supports the family with his earnings, while trying to find his place as both an actor and son of the notorious Junius. Asia, the closest to John, was a depressed yet strong-willed writer and wife/mother who wrote a hoped-to-be-redemptive memoir about her beloved John, which was only published 50 years after her death. In it, she calls him "the world's first martyr" & tries to make sense of his Confederate sympathies & his descent into violent white supremacy.

Interspersed among these vivid character portraits, are stories about the freed slaves employed by the Booths & the political progress of Abraham Lincoln. These tidbits work as terrific bookends to the stories of the Booth siblings. Fowler is adept at both physical description of the various locales the Booths live in and the fraught emotional and familial experiences they endure. I loved her fictional spin on this fascinating family. In my mind, her goal of purposely not spotlighting John, but highlighting the siblings who fought with, lived with, and loved him is a stunning achievement of family saga/historical fiction. Highly recommend!