Queens Never Make Bargains — Nancy Means Wright

QUEENS NEVER MAKE BARGAINS is the engaging, evocative tale of three spirited Scottish-American women who carry on their lives through two world wars, a flu pandemic, and a Great Depression. The story opens with young Jessie Menzies who takes ship to America to live in a Vermont machine tool town as nanny to her pious Uncle Wallace's bereaved children. The action moves in and out of a boarding house filled with eccentrics like the feisty artist Llew Arthur, whose polio forces him to paint propped up against a shaky card table. It propels us into the 30's N.Y.C. theater world where a small-minded congressman succeeds in silencing the actors; and into war-time London where rebel-pilot Victoria ferries her beloved Spitfires, has a failed love affair, and mourns a lost child. The novel explores the role of immigrants and their conflicting cultures and religions. It shows us how external events can shape and alter our lives, and how we cope with and survive them.