Aspire to the Heavens = Mount Vernon Love Story — Mary Higgins Clark

Always a lover of history, Mary Higgins Clark wrote this extensively researched biographical novel and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, after the motto of George Washington's mother, the man who became the "father of our country" in a story that is charming, insightful, and immensely entertaining. Dispelling the widespread belief that although George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, he reserved his true love for Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend's wife, Mary Higgins Clark describes the Washington marriage as one full of tenderness and passion, as a bond between two people who shared their lives -- even the bitter hardship of a winter in Valley Forge -- in every way. In this author's skilled hands, the history, the love, and the man come fully and dramatically alive.

Originally published in 1969, the book was more recently discovered by a Washington family descendant and reissued as Mount Vernon Love Story.