Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict

Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills she doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future -- and her family's.--Provided by Publisher.

Formulaic, unoriginal, and preachy. What could have been an interesting premise falls flat by turning into a self-righteous and cliché love story.

I've been dreading writing this review since page 50, when I realized I really did not like this book. But I hung in there hoping for....landmarks, maybe?

Some background, I'm going to Pittsburgh in June and wanted to read something that took place historically in Pittsburgh. I was put off by the cover, but ordered it in anyway. Just note that I love historical fiction, know a bit about Andrew Carnegie, and what I wanted was a sense of what it was like to be alive, in Pittsburgh, at that point in time.

At it's center, this book is an extremely lame romance novel. It tries to touch on too many things: the immigrant experience, Reconstruction, the different levels of the upper elite in the big cities and the idea that investing in the ground floor of a company is smart business. All of these things are introduced, but they are NOT explored and therefore it fails on every subject.
All I learned from this novel was that Pittsburgh was sooty. This novel could have taken place ANYWHERE. Andrew Carnegie is totally without character, cowering to his mother's whims. We meet some of his business partners, briefly, but not Frick? We meet Clara's cousins in Pittsburgh and I thought for sure! We are getting to the strike now! But, nah.
The Homestead strike is briefly mentioned in the epilogue.
Just so disappointing. Also, I started counting the number of times Benedict reports Clara is mending and darning stockings. Answer=way too many.
I'm a little surprised my library has this as a book club darling.