“Drawing on a true story, Hadlock uses authentic period detail and well-drawn characters to pull readers into Annie/Bessie’s precarious journey toward redemption, which comes to an unexpected ending. This affecting tale of a 19th-century American woman struggling to prove her worth other than as a marriage prospect leaves a lasting impression.” —Publishers Weekly

“[A] genre-bending debut novel. . . . There’s an impressive deliberateness in the way that Hadlock present her themes. . . The novel also skillfully uses foreshadowing to create a suspenseful atmosphere without giving the game away. . . . An often engaging and inventive character study.” —Kirkus Reviews

Pregnant out of wedlock, sixteen-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, Annie resorts to prostitution in order to survive.

As a highly sought-after demi-mondaine, Annie—now Bessie—garners many expensive gifts from her admirers, and eventually meets and marries the son of a wealthy jeweler. With her marriage, she believes her dream of returning to proper society has finally come true. She’s proven wrong when she suffers the ultimate betrayal at the hands of the man she thought would be her salvation. But Bessie doesn’t let her story end there.

Inspired by a true story and set amid the burgeoning women’s rights movement, The Lives of Diamond Bessie is a haunting tale of betrayal and redemption that explores whether seeking revenge is worth the price you might pay.

Perfect for fans of Emma Donoghue, MJ Rose, and Hannah Kent.

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Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past. — Lama Surya Das

Buffalo, New York, December 1866

I had been with the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge for four months when I finally drew up the courage to speak to the Mother Superior. The silent period was in effect, but I couldn’t wait any longer. As I approached her office, my body, weighted with a swollen belly, grew heavier. Before I could change my mind, I steeled myself and knocked on her door. After a terse “Entrez,” I entered. When the Mother saw me, she frowned.

“Why are you not at the laundry, Elisabeth?”

The Sisters, who had come from France to establish an order in Buffalo, had given me a new name upon my arrival. It still made me cringe. “Reverend Mother, I wish to write a letter to my mam.”

“That’s not allowed.”

I had expected to be denied my request but it stung nevertheless. “Why not?”

“You must let go of your past,” Mother said impatiently, her brows knitted, “so you can start a new life.”

All the penitents, as we were known, were forbidden to talk about our pasts, our homes, our families. We couldn’t even reveal our real names, but that hadn’t stopped my friend Genevieve and me from confiding in each other.

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2 Jody Hadlock

“Your maman knew that when she sent you here,” Mother said, “because of your... transgression.” Her eyes rested on my sin.

“But—”

Mother’s eyes narrowed and, after a moment of tense silence, she asked me what I would write to my mother.

I clasped my hands together to still their shaking and hoped my voice wouldn’t fail me. “That I wish to go home.”

“Your family doesn’t want you.” Her mouth curled slightly as if she enjoyed the cruelty of her words.

“That’s not—”

Mother’s posture stiffened. “Our Lady of Refuge is your home now.” I lowered my head and uttered my next words slowly. “I don’t belong here.”

“You think you’re too good for the Sisters and your fellow penitents?”

“No,” I said softly.

She tapped the Bible on her desk. “It is vanity to be proud.”

“It’s—”

“How dare you talk back to a Bride of Christ,” she snapped. “You have fallen from Grace and can only be restored to purity in God’s eyes if you carry out your atonement in the proper spirit of remorse— without complaint.”

We’d been told we would be rewarded when we’d done our penance, with what no one knew.

I stood there meekly as Mother went on. “The work you do in the laundry helps wash you of your sins. Do you know what happened to Jezabel?”

Before I could answer she leaned forward, her voice rising with her agitation. “She was thrown over a balcony and eaten by dogs. If you do not do your penance, you will perish in the fires of Hell and remain there for all eternity.”

The Lives of Diamond Bessie 3

“How long,” I started, nearly choking on my words. “How long will it take to get redemption?” The last few words came out barely above a whisper.

“What makes you think you’re so special you’ll ever enter Heaven?” she thundered, bolting out of her chair and ushering me out of her office. Dismissed and demoralized, I went to the laundry.

At supper, I expected to be denied a meal and forced to kneel on the floor, as other penitents were made to do for speaking during the silent period. But nothing happened.

For the next two days I slept uneasily, fretting over my visit to the Mother, fearful of what my punishment might be.

On the third day, Sister Agnes came to my dormitory before dawn. The creak of the door woke me. A few other girls stirred from their slumbers but remained quiet. As I rose, Genevieve caught my eye. My friend’s look expressed sympathy and terror for me.

After dressing, I followed Sister Agnes down the stairs. I slowed my pace, knowing where she was taking me. “Mother Superior is waiting,” she barked.

When we reached the basement room to which I would be banished, Mother stood outside the door in her stiff white habit, white scapular, and black veil as dark as her heart.

“You would really put someone with child in there?” I asked the Mother with as much defiance as I could bluster.

She glared at me. I had insulted her decency. Now I would really pay. “Get inside, you impudent thing,” Mother said.

I felt a kick in my abdomen. Was my baby as distressed as I was? I took a step back, placed a protective hand on my belly. “I will not.” As much as I feared the nuns, my fear of being locked away so near to giving birth was greater.

4 Jody Hadlock

Mother’s dour face clouded, a storm gathering. “Now,” she hissed. When I didn’t move, Mother said to Sister Agnes, “Get this insufferable wretch inside.”

The Sister took me by the elbow. “Elisabeth—”

“That’s not my name!” I screamed and shook my arm free.

Sister Agnes was as thin as a communion Host, but the Mother was stout and used her heft to shove me toward the dark room. I stumbled. My arms and knees hit the stone floor first, and then I felt the thud of my belly. Slowly, I rolled onto my side. As I groaned, Sister Agnes stepped over me and grabbed my dress. Mother straddled me and they pulled me into the room.

Mother closed the door and locked it, leaving me in pitch black. I clutched my stomach, fearful the fall had injured my unborn daughter. I was sure I would have a girl, just as my older sister, Hannah, had shortly before I’d been sent away for my unpardonable sin.

Slowly, I heaved myself off the floor and inched forward. A rat scurried across my path. When I found a wall, I slid my back down it and folded my knees until they rested on my swollen belly. Without a coat or blanket, I shivered in the damp cold. It seeped into my nose, my throat, my bones.

After a while the door opened. Dim light from the kerosene lamps in the hallway allowed a glimpse of a tray. As one of the nuns pushed it inside, I lunged on my hands and knees toward the door before the darkness closed in on me again. The tray held a cup of cooled tea and stale bread, which I greedily drank and ate.

I didn’t have my rosary beads, but I said the rosary over and over again anyway. When I wasn’t praying, I was planning my escape. The convent’s stone walls weren’t high enough to keep me from getting out.

The Lives of Diamond Bessie 5

Long after I lost count of my time in the basement, I felt a pop and warm liquid seeped between my legs. At first I worried I had lost control of my bladder—the chamber pot left for me was nearly over-flowing—but then I felt a spasm, so sharp I doubled over. As more of the fluid gushed onto the floor, I crawled to the door and banged and screamed for help until I lost my voice and my hands ached.

Agonizing pain came in waves, each one bigger than the last: crashing, rolling tides, like the waves that had battered my family’s crowded ship on our voyage from Ireland to America. Then, I’d been at the mercy of the sea and the captain; now I was at the mercy of the nuns and God. I closed my eyes. When I opened them I was separated from my laboring body, floating near the ceiling looking down at myself. Was I dead? I was writhing in agony below, so I must be alive. Where I hovered there was no torment, only peace and calmness. It was only when I began to worry that I needed to be with my body to bring my baby into the world that I went back to the savage throes of childbirth.

When it was over I collapsed in relief. My body throbbed but unbridled joy soared within me when the nun who had rescued me from the basement placed my precious daughter in my arms. “Should I start nursing her now?”

The Sister hesitated. “No, let’s wait.”

I assumed she knew best. After a short time she took the baby so I could rest. Exhausted, I fell asleep. When I woke, nightfall had come. I was alone. I drifted into sleep again. In the morning the nun who ran the infirmary returned. She handed me a cup of ergot of rye tea. I took a sip and asked for my baby.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You need to rest.”

6 Jody Hadlock

Another sip of tea and then more firmly I said, “I want to hold my baby.”

“She’s being taken care of,” the Sister replied and turned to leave. I grabbed her arm.

“I want my baby. Now.”

She shook loose of my hold and left the room. The Sister’s behavior was upsetting. Of course as a new mother I wanted to hold my child. Was she sickly? When I’d held her, she hadn’t appeared to be anything but the healthiest infant. If something had happened in between giving birth and her being taken from my arms, why would they hide that from me?

Later in the day Sister Agnes came.

“Please bring Hannah back,” I said.

She gave me a quizzical look.

“I named my baby after my sister.”

She started to say something, then hesitated and stopped.

“Please, I want to see my baby,” I pleaded with her.

She straightened as if bracing herself. “She’s been taken to St.

Vincent’s.”

I stared at her, confused.

Her next words stunned me to my core. “It’s an orphan asylum.”

I bolted upright. “What do you mean? I can take care of her.”

Sister hesitated, pursed her thin lips. “It’s for the best.”

“Bring me my baby,” I said, my voice sharp and high as I fought

back the hysteria rising inside me.

“I can’t... she’s already gone.”

“What do you mean?” I threw off the bedsheets. “She’s my baby.”

“Elisabeth—”

“Stop calling me that. My name is Annie.”

The Lives of Diamond Bessie 7

I choked down a sob, then let it come forth. My body wracked with despair.

The nun in charge of the infirmary returned, hastened by my screams, and instructed me to stay in bed. With all the strength I could muster I pushed them both and stood. Sister Agnes lost her balance but the other nun stood her ground. I clawed at her, drawing blood. When Sister Agnes regained her footing, they pinned me down and held me until I stopped struggling.

Venomous bile filled me. The nuns had taken my name, my dignity, and now my baby. The convent wasn’t a refuge; it was Hell, and I would no longer remain a prisoner. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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