Reviews and Interviews

Reviews

“Weisgarber’s marvelous third novel is ….. a rich, powerful, and wholly immersive tale grounded in Utah and Mormon history.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review

“….Weisgarber excels at the slowly unfurling tale, where the characters’ waiting and indecision build tension as deftly as any action sequence. ….much of its disquiet comes from what the characters can’t see or feel, from their nervous anticipation… Highly recommended.”—Historical Novel Society, Editors’ Choice

[Weisgarber’s] exploration of a woman struggling to satisfy her conscience is telling and touching.” – The (London) Sunday Times

“…offers a window into the Mormon culture and conflicts over polygamy. A truly fresh perspective to a little-known era of history.” – Western Writers of America

“… one of the great strength of this book, [is] to glimpse the inner thoughts of likable characters without melodrama or sappiness, but rather an earned sentimentality that humanizes their decisions and their disappointments, no saccharine required. Part love story, part religious explication, party mystery, this novel judiciously weaves all of these fictional trajectories into a seamless whole. Yet another of the author’s great talents is for building suspense…” – The Houston Chronicle

“… a taut exploration of right and wrong, of good and evil … multilayered … features conflicts both external and internal. [The] Glovemaker is a quiet novel, but a rewarding one. It’s just right for a winter night and worthy of some rumination.” – Dallas Morning News

“… a tense, suspenseful story filled with empathetic characters … addresses the issue of plural marriage with sensitivity and empathy … skilled prose, interesting characters, and an engrossing plot kept me reading and enjoying The Glovemaker.” – Association of Mormon Letters

“….part literary thriller, part survival story, part history of a time in America that many people won’t know about …. huge emotional power and an ending that will satisfy.” – NZ (New Zealand) Booklovers

“Weisgarber has within her toolkit a knack for getting under the skin of her characters … it’s within the novel’s characterisations and meticulous adherence to the book’s form which makes the work more significant among other works of historic fiction. It’s a truly literary piece…” – The Big Smoke (Australia)

“Ann Weisgarber beautifully paints the harsh, lonely environment of the Utah Territory during the winter of 1887-1888 while creating tense moments and life-altering revelations for her heroine, Deborah…. Weisgarber’s strong grip on suspense keeps the pages turning until the last storm passes and Deborah finds peace within herself. – BookPage

“Weisgarber makes effective use of early Mormon history to explore moral choice … [Her] compression in language, setting, number of characters, and chronology lends this tale an unusual force.” — Booklist

“The Glovemaker, Ann Weisgarber’s engrossing, troubling, honest-to-goodness third novel, is as stark and touching as the lives described, as tense and testing as the Utah backlands where it’s set, as fine as any fiction you will read this year.” – Jim Crace, The Melody and Harvest

“A compelling story balanced on the knife edge between religion and ethics, crime and sin, compassion and fear.” — Mary Doria Russell, author of Doc and Epitaph

“The Glovemaker is another triumph from one of our country’s finest historical novelists. Once again Ann Weisgarber gives us a spellbinding, multi-layered heroine whose survival is jeopardized by the harshness of the land and the man she loves. A tale of moral complexity as compelling and suspenseful as the great American classic, The Ox-Box Incident, The Glovemaker deftly explores a woman, alone with her conscience and the devastating consequences of serving community over self, finding the strength to choose right over righteousness.” – Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“When I first started reading Ann Weisgarber’s new book, I had no expectation that a novel about renegade Mormons in Utah in the 1880’s could turn out to be so precisely suspenseful that, if Alfred Hitchcock were alive, he might snap up the film rights. The Glovemaker is a humane, high-velocity glimpse into the ever-simmering dilemmas of faith and conscience.” – Stephen Harrigan, The Gates of the Alamo and Remember Ben Clayton

“Ann Weisgarber is a historian of the first degree, but her true strength lies in crafting sweeping and often poignant fictional narratives of the iconic women who helped settle the American heartland. Ms. Weisgarber, in The Glovemaker, has once again created a heroine of extraordinary grace and courage in a challenging, at times violent, but ultimately sublime landscape.” – Kathleen Kent, The Heretic’s Daughter

“The Glovemaker, placed in Utah in 1888, is a beautiful novel that while deeply anchored in history feels oddly relevant in today’s world. Told primarily from the point of Deborah, a Latter-day Saint in Mormon country who cannot stand to watch federal government lawmen hunt Mormon men and their families. The issue then was religious liberty and Deborah finds herself in the thick of it.” – Jan Jarboe Russell, The Train to Crystal City