Madeline McKnight — fierce, determined, a “Wizard of Wall Street”, and … not possessed of too many friends. Fighting against the inevitable resulting from a stage 4 melanoma diagnosis, she is determined to survive it until her museum honoring Hetty Green (1834 – 1916) is opened. She wants people to care about Hetty, and to recognize her brilliance. She sees herself — her accomplishments and her lack of recognition — in Hetty. Hetty was called “the Witch of Wall Street” in her time — Madeline’s epithet rhymes and starts with B. She invites (cajoles, bribes) Bri Davis — struggling nursing student drowning in debt and easily bribable — to help her get to the finish line. The catch? Bri’s mother was Madeline’s best friend until an emotional explosion drove them apart many years ago. Bri’s attitude toward Madeline is ambivalent at best.
Alternating chapters between Madeleine and Bri’s perspectives, the narrative is surprisingly witty, thoughtful, and illuminating. While I shed some tears when the obvious finally occurred, I left feeling more uplifted than down. Excellent writing — clear, humorous at times, and perfectly capturing the internal struggles one faces when considering the parts of one’s life already lived. Themes around money and wealth, atonement, loyalty conflicting with morality, and plenty of thoughtful coverage of how women are treated differently than men — not the heavy handed oppression storyline, but the small ways in which things are harder or more criticized or misunderstood or subject to some doozies of double standards. The latter was particularly interesting because Madeline was forced to acknowledge the complexity of individual human beings. She wanted to make Hetty an unsung hero but the reality of Hetty — known as the “richest woman in America in the Gilded Age” — was more complex. She was a self-made woman with astonishing financial prowess, yet she did nothing to help others, not even supporting women’s suffrage. This led to Madeline’s own soul searching and the recognition and acceptance of her own accomplishments and failures.
Completely engaging.
Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on November 3rd, 2026.
Books to look forward to ... 