Published by Doubleday
January 1991
ISBN 9780385417754
The Raven's Bride
A Novel of Eliza Allen and Sam Houston
2006 Texas Reads: One Book One Texas selection
“I never thought a first novel could capture me as much as this one did….From start to finish she had me.” —Bill Moyers
“. . . a touching psychological Portrait of a Marriage.” —Vogue
“Crook’s intricate first novel engagingly details the abrupt dissolution of Sam Houston’s 11-week marriage to Eliza Allen . . . the couple’s emotional turmoil is maintained at high pitch by the interaction of a rich cast of characters …” —Publishers Weekly
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Praise for The Raven's Bride
“This is Crook’s highly colored, ambitious attempt to penetrate the lifelong silences of both parties [Sam Houston and Eliza Allen] concerning what Crook views as a doomed marriage of an irresistible force and an immovable spirit . . . Crook sets her tale of battling Titans in Olympic chiaroscuro . . . In all, a rousing first novel, fired by theatrical flashes and clever, soundly research-based speculation.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Elizabeth Crook hits the ground running with her imaginative first novel about the Houston marriage . . . it all had something to do with those eternally problematic issues trust, pride and sex . . . [Crook’s] words are as carefully chosen as pearls on a matched necklace, her narrative as clear as spring water. If this particular Eliza Allen, who chose her own mystery, never actually lived in the flesh, she should have.”
—Joyce R. Slater, USA Today
“I never thought a first novel could capture me as much as this one did….From start to finish she had me.”
—Bill Moyers
“It is my hope that America enters the new century on the brunt of talented and robust storytelling such as we find in The Raven’s Bride.”
—Thomas Keneally
“. . . a touching psychological Portrait of a Marriage.”
—Vogue
“The Raven’s Bride is far more than just another historical romance . . . It is an absorbing novel of character . . . A highly readable tale. Its personalities stir the reader’s curiosity and imagination, and while it does not conclusively solve the mystery, it sheds light on one of the most puzzling episodes in American history.”
—Tom Pilkington, Dallas Morning News
“Crook’s intricate first novel engagingly details the abrupt dissolution of Sam Houston’s 11-week marriage to Eliza Allen . . . the couple’s emotional turmoil is maintained at high pitch by the interaction of a rich cast of characters…this well-researched historical romance manages to capture some towering personalities at a pivotal moment in history.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A skillful and provocative first novel . . . The Raven’s Bride is a study of the way daughters relate to their fathers, the way seduction can fail to segue into long-term commitment, and the way ambition may or may not fit into the context of marriage. Crook’s novel reads like a parable of those immemorial preoccupations that just happens to have a nineteenth-century setting . . . The final melancholy enticement of The Raven’s Bride is that it transcends its historical trappings.”
—Suzanne Winckler, Texas Monthly
“. . .what Crook has done is dream up her own version of what happened between these star-crossed lovers. It’s a splendid idea for a novel — so good you wonder why nobody ever thought of it before.”
—Elizabeth Bennett, Houston Post
“I’m paying Ms. Crook a compliment when I say this is fiction that is as interesting as fact.”
—Perre Magness, Memphis Commercial Appeal
“This is a first rate piece of historical fiction as well as a frequently moving love story.”
—Jay Freeman, Booklist
“[Crook’s] power of imagination, creativity and sensitivity is thunderous in her first novel, The Raven’s Bride.”
—Richard L. Connor, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“She writes not as a novice but as an adroit and often brilliant storyteller, mixing the requirements of history, the call of romance and its tragic conclusion with narrative ease.”
—Billy Porterfield, Austin American-Statesman
About The Raven's Bride
In 1829, Sam Houston was a thirty-six-year-old governor of Tennessee, an imperious political genius whose horizons seemed limitless. The marriage of this charismatic, ambitious statesman to twenty-year-old Eliza Allen, the daughter of a prominent landholder, seemed to form the perfect social foundation on which Houston would build his glittering career. But just eleven weeks after the wedding, Eliza suddenly and inexplicably left her new husband, creating a scandal that caused the governor to resign his office in disgrace and embark on an exile that would ultimately deliver him to Texas, and a destiny even grander and more improbable than anyone could have imagined.
Through decades of rumor and speculation, Sam Houston and Eliza Allen never revealed the source of their unhappiness, and carried the secret with them to their graves. The Raven’s Bride is a brilliantly original novel that unravels this dark romantic mystery while illuminating a vivid and fascinating moment in America’s past.
In these pages, Sam Houston is presented as he must have been—a heroic figure (called the Raven by the Cherokee), vain, flamboyant, magnetic, his outsized personality fueled by a desperate need for love. And Eliza Allen is his match: a magnificent young woman, both drawn to and disturbed by her husband’s grand aspirations.
With the investigative acuity of a historian and the profound empathy of a gifted novelist, Elizabeth Crook has created an enthralling portrait of these star-crossed lovers and the vibrant, restless world that brought them together. Richly detailed and splendidly imagined, The Raven’s Bride turns a baffling historical conundrum into a complex and deeply affecting love story.