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An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew  By  cover art

An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew

By: Annejet van der Zijl,Michele Hutchison - translator
Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
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Publisher's summary

A Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestseller.

Two-time Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel names An American Princess as one of her favorite books of the year: “light and gracefully written, it dances through a century of history...” (The Guardian)

Born to a pioneering family in Upstate New York in the late 1800s, Allene Tew was beautiful, impetuous, and frustrated by the confines of her small hometown. At eighteen, she met Tod Hostetter at a local dance, having no idea that the mercurial charmer she would impulsively wed was heir to one of the wealthiest families in America. But when he died twelve years later, Allene packed her bags for New York City. Never once did she look back.

From the vantage point of the American upper class, Allene embodied the tumultuous Gilded Age. Over the course of four more marriages, she weathered personal tragedies during World War I and the catastrophic financial reversals of the crash of 1929. From the castles and châteaus of Europe, she witnessed the Russian Revolution and became a princess. And from the hopes of a young girl from Jamestown, New York, Allene Tew would become the epitome of both a pursuer and survivor of the American Dream.

©2015 Annejet van der Zijl (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2018 by Michele Hutchison.

What listeners say about An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew

Average customer ratings
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American princess

Love historical books and this is one of them
It reads like it's a story the author created but it really happened...
and I think this adds to the beauty of this book! The narrator did a good job

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Good Documentation of American Royalty

This was an interesting book about a little known Woman. I was impressed by the way the Subject transformed to the pressures and politics she navigated amidst. I enjoyed the book immensely! This book was given by the Author free in return for a review. Thank You!

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15 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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such a good book!!!!

highly recommend for anyone interested in history, or anyone who just likes a good story.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable

I enjoyed the history lesson a great deal paired with the story of Allene's life. I could have done without all the dates but I suppose it was necessary to set the story. I wish there could have been a little more personal information about how she felt in terms of the tragedies she faced.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

This is not a novel, but a long newspaper article

I couldn,t get into this book. Nothing ever gets developed and it reads like a long summary . It doesn't deserve one star.

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9 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting documentation

I have never heard of this person and it was interesting. At times it did begin to sound more like a school textbook, but overall it was entertaining.

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6 people found this helpful

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Hope and Courage

The story of Allene Tew was fascinating and interesting . She was a survivor and kept ‘hope and courage ‘ always in her life.
Narration was excellent and would recommend book to readers of history and life.

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6 people found this helpful

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An American Princess

I loved this book!It was so interesting listening to how social structure was back ten.I live in Pennsylvania and have some knowledge of the ricks and Carnegies,so being able to place where some of her life happened was a plus.A very interesting woman.Teri Schnaubelt was a terrific narrator.I was given this book by the narrator,author or publisher free for an honest review.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written

I throughly enjoyed this. It was a fascinating story of a woman I wish I could have known.

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5 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Boring, Boring, Boring

It was difficult to finish listening to this biography it was so lifeless. It sounded as if the reader were reading from a telephone directory, a special edition that included dates. Many, many dates. The subject was Allene Tew, a woman who married a series of wealthy men, bought houses in various parts of the world, had no personality, and, other than purchasing and selling,never actually did anything. The listener doesn’t learn if Tew had any goals, such as straightening out her step son. She seemed to have no hobbies, e.g. beautifying one of the areas in which she had bought a house. Nothing.

My advice is, if you begin this book, don’t waste your time continuing to listen in hopes something interesting will happen. It never does.

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5 people found this helpful