REVIEW: The Hamilton Affair by Elizabeth Cobbs

Review by Christina Boyd

The Hamilton Affair is an almost faithful narrative of the real life and times of one of America’s most controversial and talented Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. With a fine brush, author Elizabeth Cobbs colors the stretches in between what is written in the history books—Hamilton’s humble beginnings in St Croix as a bastard child, his rise to greatness through his own pen in New York, his courage on and off the battlefield, his passionate marriage to Elizabeth Schuyler, the liaison with a married woman that almost lost him everything, and his devotion to his family, George Washington, God, a newborn nation, and honor—with verve and thoughtful prose.

History is written from the victors’ perspective; years of bitter partisanship and animosity from Hamilton’s political rivals outlived him by decades. Well researched, this historical fiction offers a sweeping, almost cinematic, accounting of the life through Hamilton’s and his courageous wife’s eyes. A page-turner from the beginning until the last.

Rated “Moderate” for some sexual references but nothing explicit.