A Founding Mother (2024) is a work of historical fiction by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, the bestselling authors of other novels about America’s founding women, including America’s First Daughter and My Dear Hamilton. A selection for Reese’s Book Club, the novel is a sweeping first-person narrative of the life of Abigail Adams. The story follows Abigail from her early years as a wife and mother in colonial Massachusetts through the American Revolution, her time in Europe as a diplomat’s wife, and her tenure as the nation’s second first lady. Told from her perspective, the novel frames the birth of the United States through the eyes of a woman who was both a keen observer of and a key participant in founding the nation. Consequently, the novel explores the personal sacrifices required by public life and the paradoxes at the heart of the American Revolution developing the themes of The Invisible Labor of Women, Marriage as an Unequal Partnership, and The Toll of Public Service on Family. 

This guide refers to the 2024 William Morrow first edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of child death, pregnancy loss, substance use, addiction, illness or death, racism, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, gender discrimination, graphic violence, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Abigail Adams is a young, intellectually curious wife and mother in Braintree, Massachusetts. Married to the ambitious country lawyer John Adams, she chafes against the domestic expectations of the era and the overbearing concern of her mother. As political tensions with Great Britain escalate, the Adams family moves to Boston, where they are thrust into the heart of the conflict. The period is marked by personal tragedy; Abigail loses her infant daughter Susanna to pleurisy, and the family faces social ostracism when John undertakes the principled but unpopular defense of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. This pressure forces them back to Braintree, but the political turmoil only grows. Following the Boston Tea Party and Britain’s punitive closure of Boston Harbor, John is selected as a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Accepting this duty as a necessary sacrifice, Abigail remains behind to manage their farm and raise their children—Nabby, John Quincy, and Charles—alone, preparing herself for the immense struggles to come.

The outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord transforms Abigail’s life. With her young son John Quincy at her side, she watches the Battle of Bunker Hill from afar and mourns the death of her friend and physician, Dr. Joseph Warren. Committed to the Patriot cause, she melts her pewter spoons to cast musket balls. As John’s role in Congress deepens, Abigail becomes his most essential correspondent, providing him with on-the-ground intelligence from Massachusetts and offering sharp political counsel. To secure her family’s finances, she starts a small but profitable business selling scarce goods like sewing pins. Tragedy strikes again when a dysentery epidemic sweeps through her town. Abigail and her sons fall gravely ill, and her mother, who rushes to nurse them, contracts the disease and dies, leaving Abigail devastated by guilt and grief. After the British evacuate Boston, she makes the risky decision to have her children inoculated against smallpox. She is in Boston to hear the Declaration of Independence read aloud, an event that inspires her famous letter urging John to “remember the ladies” in the new nation’s laws, a plea he dismisses as a joke.

The sacrifices demanded by the war intensify. After a brief reunion, John breaks his promise to be home for the birth of their next child, who is tragically stillborn. Soon after, he is appointed a diplomat to France and makes the agonizing decision to take their two oldest sons, John Quincy and Charles, with him. Left alone in America for nearly six years, Abigail expands her mercantile business, investing in European goods and land to protect their family from financial ruin. During this separation, she endures a painful period where John’s letters from abroad turn cold and accusatory, causing her to fear their marriage is broken. Eventually, she and a teenage Nabby cross the Atlantic to join him. Reunited first in London, they settle into diplomatic life outside Paris and reaffirm their love for each other. There, Abigail navigates the unfamiliar customs of French society and forms friendships with Adrienne Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. When John is appointed the first American ambassador to Great Britain, the family moves to London, where Abigail must endure a hostile reception at the court of King George III and Queen Charlotte.

While in London, Nabby discovers that her love interest at home, Royall Tyler, has been unfaithful. She later finds a more suitable match in Colonel William Stephens Smith, John’s secretary, and they marry. After years abroad, the family returns to America, where John is elected the first Vice President. Abigail moves first to New York and then to the new nation’s capital in Philadelphia, where as the “second lady” she helps establish the social protocols of the young republic alongside First Lady Martha Washington. She witnesses the growing political schism between Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republicans of her old friend Thomas Jefferson. After Washington retires, John is elected the second President. Abigail’s tenure as First Lady is defined by the nation’s looming “Quasi-War” with France. She supports John’s controversial measures, including the Alien and Sedition Acts, while also dealing with family crises. Their son Charles descends into alcohol addiction and adultery, leading a heartbroken John to renounce him. Near the end of John’s term, the capital moves to the unfinished Washington City. After losing a bitter re-election campaign to Jefferson, and just as they are preparing to leave office, they receive word that Charles has died, a blow that devastates them both.

The Adamses retire to their home in Quincy, which they name Peacefield. Abigail slowly recovers from her grief over Charles. After Jefferson’s daughter Polly dies, Abigail initiates a correspondence with the president, which evolves into a series of heated letters where they privately confront their political and personal grievances. Their family faces further trials when their son-in-law, Colonel Smith, is financially ruined. Nabby is then diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes a brutal mastectomy, which Abigail witnesses. Though Nabby seems to recover, the cancer returns years later. She makes the arduous journey home to Peacefield, where she dies surrounded by her family. This loss is the greatest affliction of Abigail’s life. During the War of 1812, with the British burning the capital, an aged and despairing Abigail questions if all her sacrifices have been for naught. On her 50th wedding anniversary, she presents John with her Last Will and Testament, a document bequeathing her own considerable, independently-earned fortune to the women of her family. John, acknowledging her as his true equal, vows to ensure her will is honored. In an epilogue set years later, her son John Quincy returns from Russia to become Secretary of State. As she embraces him, Abigail reflects on her life of struggle and loss, finally concluding that her devotion to her family and her country was all for a purpose.