Book Review – The Mapmakers Wife, Robert Whitaker

“A true tale of love, murder and survival in the Amazon”

Another recommendation from the folks at the Alla Bookstore in Santa Fe…they always seem to find the right reading for me.

From the back cover:

The year is 1735. A decade-long expedition to South America is launched by a team of French scientists racing to measure the circumference of the earth and to reveal the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery and knowledge. From this extraordinary journey arose an unlikely love story between one scientist and a beautiful Peruvian noblewoman. Victims of a tangled web of international politics, Jean Godin and Isabel Grameson’s destiny would ultimately unfold in the Amazon’s unforgiving jungles, and it would be Isabel’s quest to reunite with Jean after a calamitous twenty-year separation that would capture the imagination of all of eighteenth-century Europe. A remarkable testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and enduring love, Isabel Grameson’s survival remains unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration.

The first part of the book is a bit long for me…telling the story of the genesis of the expedition and the scientific politics involved…but the tale of her adventures and survival is worth all the wait….