The Inspiration Behind A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions

June 9, 2021 | 12:00 PM

The Inspiration Behind A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions

By Sheena Boekweg
The Inspiration Behind A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions
My grandparents died twenty-two days apart. At my grandfather’s funeral we talked all about my grandfather’s life, and at my grandmother’s funeral we talked about my grandfather. My grandma wrote thousands of poems. She’d had a small stroke after childbirth, and developed a compulsion to write at least one poem every day. After she died, I asked my mother for them, and she could only find three. Three poems. Out of thousands. All my grandmother’s secret thoughts, my grandmother’s stories, my grandmother’s words. Thrown away like litter. At my grandmother’s funeral we talked about my grandfather. In ancient Rome, daughters were called by their father’s name. So if there were three daughters of Claudio, they all shared one name. One sisterhood. Claudia the eldest, or Claudia the youngest, or Claudia the third. Roman’s sons were given three names. I was not given a middle name. My parents told me my maiden name would be my middle name once I married. I was called a wife before they washed the blood off of me. When I grew up, and I grew fat, they stopped imagining a wedding for me. When I said I was fat then, people corrected me. I wasn’t fat, I was beautiful. I know now it’s possible to be both. I know now that beauty is not the rent we pay to wear our father’s name. But when I said it, I craved the permission that I could wear the title they gave me still soaked in blood. When I was a teen, and I worried I was not enough to be a wife, I imagined a life without marriage. It wasn’t a dream, it was a plan I hoped I’d never need. But some nights, I’d fall asleep dreaming about marrying someone who would one day be special. In my dreams, I was always Cinderella, and he always got to be the prince. When my husband first told me he loved me, I thanked him. When my husband told me he loved me, I didn’t believe him. When my husband said he wanted to marry me, strangers gave me an up and down look. Her? they’d ask, like I’d broken a rule. When I married young I thought I was claiming my last shot. When I married young, I knew I was lucky, and chosen, and special. And also so very hungry. I eat until I’m full now. I dream until I’m full now. I speak until I’m heard now. I’m well-loved as I deserve to be. And when I speak, I find myself repeating the same words. You are enough. Your life matters, even inside the body you are wearing. Your life matters as much as your brothers, or your husband, or your father. Your dreams matter. I know the voice that told me those words first. It was my grandmother’s voice, whispering it in my mother’s ear as she sent her off to school, and then sat to write poems that will never be read. It was my mother’s words as she sang me to sleep. And it is a book, bound in love, and written for you.

A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions by Sheena Boekweg

A teen girl, backed by a secret society of powerful women, competes to make an 18-year-old future President fall in love with her in Sheena Boekweg's compelling new YA novel, A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions. Behind every powerful man is a trained woman, and behind every trained woman is the Society. It started with tea parties and matchmaking but is now a countrywide secret. Gossips pass messages in recipes, Spinsters train to fight, and women work together to grant safety to abused women and children. The Society is more than oaths—it is sisterhood and purpose. In 1926, seventeen-year-old Elsie is dropped off in a new city with four other teenage girls. All of them have trained together since childhood to become the Wife of a powerful man. But when they learn that their next target is earmarked to become President, their mission becomes more than just an assignment; this is a chance at the most powerful position in the Society. All they have to do is make one man fall in love with them first.

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