Book review: A British Governess in America by Becky Lower

 

Blurb:

Eleanor Chastain has never left her hometown in Sussex, England. For ten years, she’s been a governess to the local earl’s young children, and now that the last of them has gone to boarding school, she finds herself unemployed. But the earl has other plans for her—a nephew of his in the fledgling country of America desperately needs a guiding hand for his five youngsters. Though Eleanor wants no part of America or the earl’s nephew, she has no choice but to accept the “offer” and set sail for the war-torn country.

Patterson Lovejoy’s wife died two years ago in childbirth, and chaos has ruled his household since that dark day. Though he’s glad to have Eleanor’s help, he begins to wonder if the peace of mind he has enjoyed since her arrival is worth the torment he is feeling as time goes by—and he finds himself falling in love with her. He can’t allow that to happen, since he feels responsible for his wife’s death. Marriage--ever again—is out of the question.

But with the deciding battles of the Revolutionary War approaching, can they take a chance on their love, after all? Will the war end their secret longing for what might be between them before they can admit their need for one another? When the battle hits their home and they are separated, Eleanor discovers an inner strength she didn’t know existed, and Patterson must make a decision he never thought he’d face.

My review:

Terrific historical story set in the time of the Revolutionary War, which gave a good history visit along with a sweet happily-ever-after.  Filled with drama/intrigue and adventure, we get a good dose of reality at that time, some adorable and challenging kids, and a gentle love story between two deserving people.

Purchase links:

     

The Sons of Liberty

 When I first began my series about the American Revolutionary War, I knew the war would not be simply a backdrop for my stories, but rather an integral part of it. And, although the main characters are purely the product of my imagination, I wanted to use real people from the Revolution as part of the cast of characters. What better group of men to associate my Revolutionary Women characters with than the original bad boys–the Sons of Liberty. An author friend of mine said if the Revolutionary War happened today, the Sons of Liberty would be on motorcycles, wearing black leather, and have multiple tattoos. I have a feeling she's right. Even though the men featured in this series are fictional, they rub shoulders with some real-life men who were integral to the cause. The most predominant one in Book One, and the one most people identify with is Samuel Adams.

 At the time I began my journey I knew that Samuel Adams was a firebrand, who helped stoke the flames of the Revolution, but I had no knowledge as to why this was so important to him. Why did this man have a driving need to free his homeland from England? The answer surprised me and brought clarity to a lot of stories about him. 

Samuel Adams was born in Boston in 1722, one of twelve children of Samuel Adams, Sr., and Mary Fifield, a religious and politically active family. He was a cousin to John Adams, who later became a president of the new country of the United States. The senior Adams was a prosperous man and church deacon in the Puritan faith. He became very active in local politics and was a leading figure in what became known as the Boston Caucus. He rose through the ranks to become a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. One of the duties of the House of Representatives was to carefully watch for any encroachment by England into the rights of the colonists that had been embodied in the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. 

 

In 1739, members of the House of Representatives reacted to a currency shortage by establishing a “land bank” which issued paper money to homeowners in exchange for holding a mortgage on their land as collateral. Opposition by loyalists to the crown forced the dissolution of the bank in 1741 and the directors of the bank, including Adams, Sr., were held personally liable for all the currency still in circulation, payable in gold and silver. The British seized much of Deacon Adams’ property and finances, gutting the family’s wealth and leading to numerous lawsuits against the family. Deacon Adams, and later, Samuel Adams, Jr., had to constantly battle against the British government to defend what was left of their family estate from the hands of the British. These lawsuits were a constant and very personal reminder to the younger Sam Adams about the power the British held over the colonies. 

 

Several failed attempts at business propositions later, the younger Samuel Adams joined his family’s malthouse. Several generations of the family had been in the malt business, an essential element of beer production. But Sam, Jr. was more interested in politics than in beer production. He began penning essays against the British rule in America as early as 1748, urging people to resist any encroachment on their constitutional rights. 

 

Following the costly French and Indian War, the British parliament found itself deeply in debt and thought to recoup some of its losses by imposing a tax on the colonies of British America. The Sugar Act, The Stamp Act, and then the Townshend Acts attempted to raise revenue, but were all met with resistance. Unable to enforce these rulings, the governor petitioned the crown for military assistance. This was a turning point for Samuel Adams. Up until then, he was hoping for reform, but now realized the only path forward was complete and total independence from the mother country. In 1770, tensions spilled over, resulting in the now-infamous Boston Massacre. 

 

Adams kept dabbling in local politics and the colonies crept closer to total independence from Britain. Citing taxation without representation, struggles about power and taxes became a daily concern among Bostonians. Adams took a lead role in the famous Boston Tea Party and later became a major voice in both the First and Second Continental Congresses, which framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. He was the founder of the Sons of Liberty, a formal underground group of citizens who were resistant to the crown and its taxes and laws. Some prominent members of this group were Benjamin Edes, publisher of the Boston Gazette, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Isaiah Thomas, Benjamin Kent and James Otis. This group was responsible for establishing a network for disseminating information among the colonies about the British troop movements, smuggling goods for use by the Continental Army, and for painting large Ts over the doorways of any Tory businesses in Boston proper. Samuel Adams is now considered one of America’s founding fathers for the role he played in crafting the ideals of liberty and uniting the colonies in their quest for freedom from tyranny. One of Adams’ famous quotes seems quite fitting for today’s political landscape.

 

“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

 

 

In 1985, the Boston Beer Company appropriated the name Samuel Adams to use on what is now a best-selling brand of lager, citing Adams’ early involvement in the family malt business. Two non-profit organizations have also attached his name to their work, paying homage to his skills at organizing citizens at a local level in the quest for a national goal. 

Anne Whitney, Samuel Adams, bronze and granite statue, 1880, located in front of Faneuil Hall, which was the home of the Boston Town Meeting

 

Revolutionary Women

It’s hard to believe, especially in today’s social environment, how stringent women’s lives were as recently as 200 years ago in America. This is an especially difficult road to navigate when writing historical romances. In light of recent events in the romance publishing industry, and its long-overdue push to be inclusive, some books featuring the struggles of women to serve equally with men, or to live their own best lives, are shoved aside as being too controversial for today’s climate. 

I’ve written before about women’s participation behind the scenes during the Revolutionary War in America, and how not every woman stayed behind closed doors knitting socks and rolling bandages but acted as spies or secret double agents, passing along overheard information. Some women became camp followers, and helped feed the troops who marched into battle, but never before have I written about the women who actually fought alongside the men in these battles. But there were a handful of these brave souls. Allow me to introduce you to Deborah Sampson, the only woman to earn a full military pension for participation in the Revolutionary War. 

Deborah Sampson was born in 1760 in Plymouth, MA, one of seven children of Pilgrim stock, and related to both Myles Standish and Governor William Bradford. Upon the death of her father, Deborah was placed as an indentured servant at age ten. When her indenture was completed, at age 18, she became a teacher, but in 1782, when the Revolutionary War dragged on, the patriotic Sampson had enough of sitting on the sidelines. She donned men’s clothing, named herself Robert Shurtleff and joined the Massachusetts regiment. Standing at five feet, nine inches, and stocky of build, she bound her small breasts with a linen cloth in order to pass as a man. Her features were ordinary, and, according to her friend, Herman Mann “not what a physiognomist would term the most beautiful.” Her appearance–tall, broad, strong, and not delicately feminine–contributed to her success at pretending to be a man. 

She was given the dangerous mission of scouting neutral territory to gauge the British troops buildup and supplies. As Shurtleff, she led expeditions and raids on British troops, often fighting in one-on-one encounters with the enemy. She dug trenches alongside her fellow countrymen and endured cannon fire. 

For nearly two years, she fought alongside men in the Continental Army without detection as to her true identity, but she did have a couple close calls. During a battle, she received a gash on her head from a sword and was shot in the thigh. She allowed the medical staff to care for her head wound but left the medical tent before they could undress her to care for the leg wound. She extracted the bullet herself with a penknife and sewed her wound closed. Her gender was ultimately discovered when she became ill during an epidemic, and lost consciousness. 

Following her honorable discharge in October 1783, she returned to Massachusetts and two years later, married Benjamin Gannet, a farmer from Sharon, MA and had three children. Her life story was written by Herman Mann in 1797, entitled Memoirs of an American Young Lady. She became an ordinary farmer’s wife, and raised their children, except in 1802, when she spent a year touring the country and talking about her experiences on the battlefield, becoming one of the earliest female lecturers in the country. 

State of Deborah Sampson outside the Sharon, MA library

 Following her death, her husband petitioned the government for spousal pay, given to any spouse of a soldier. The committee concluded that the history of the Revolution “furnished no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage” and awarded Mr. Gannet the payment he requested.  

Several books have been written about Deborah Sampson’s experiences and are available on Amazon. 

 

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Sampson

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Deborah-Sampson

The first book in Becky Lower’s new Revolutionary Women series, was released in June. It features Pippa Worthington, a British heiress who, in order to avoid a loveless arranged marriage, dons a boy’s clothes and heads for America at the start of the Revolutionary War in search of her own freedom. Find out what happens next here: https://www.amazon.com/British-Heiress-America-Revolutionary-Women-ebook/dp/B089RNSY3P

Evacuation Day

British ships leaving Boston Harbor

Unless you live in or near Boston, MA, you’ve probably never heard of Evacuation Day. But Bostonians celebrate it every March 17, since it marks the day in 1776 that the British forces finally left Boston, after being encamped there for eleven months. What prompted this final evacuation is a feat of human endurance, the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. There were cannons in Fort Ticonderoga, NY, over 300 miles away from Boston. General George Washington placed the transfer of these heavy cannon to the then 25-year-old Colonel Henry Knox. 

Henry Knox

They had to wait until the ground was frozen, otherwise the heavy equipment would become lodged in the soft dirt while in transit. The first part of the journey involved floating the fifty-nine cannons and mortars down Lake George, hoping to get them on land at the southern border of the lake before the water completely froze over. It took three days to traverse the lake. Then, the hard part began. The cannon parts were loaded onto forty-two sleds tugged by eighty oxen, over mountainous terrain. The journey took fifty-six days to accomplish. At the end of it, more than 1000 Bostonians gathered at Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor and reassembled the cannons. 

What the British didn’t realize was while the cannons may look dangerous to their troops in the harbor, the Americans had only enough gunpowder and cannon balls to issue warning shots. The fifty-nine cannons only looked impressive. Even more impressive was the fact some of the cannons facing the harbor were not cannons at all, but were logs painted black to resemble cannons, at least from a distance. 

The cleverness of the Americans was enough to do the trick, and the British forces left the harbor, finally. George Washington stood on the Heights above the city of Boston and watched as the ships evacuated the city and moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

I write about Evacuation Day in A British Heiress in America, the first book in my new Revolutionary Women series. The heroine, Pippa, has to don a boy’s clothing to move about the city by herself, and in her disguise, she is recruited to help assemble the cannons and paint the fake cannons. Here’s an excerpt: 

Shots rang out from the direction of Cambridge.

“The distraction’s begun, men,” Henry Knox called out. “Let’s get these cannons to Dorchester.”

Daniel glanced up as the snow swirled around the line of sleds and oxen. Several thousand men, by his rough estimate, had come together to help and were lending a hand at each sled. “Thank God. We have reinforcements.”

Ben chuckled. “The Brits won’t know what hit ‘em.”

With little fanfare, the men started reassembling the cannons and rolling them into place. The gunshots continued to ring out from Cambridge. With any luck, the cannons would be in position before the fighting stopped.

They unloaded one sled after another, and the oxen were led away to the closest farm with a corral large enough to hold them. The oxen’s hard work was finished, but the waiting men, and the cannons still had work to do. The gun battle whimpered to a close and the cannons were all in place. The fake guns, made from painted logs, had been placed in the farthest spots, but they appeared real enough, at least from a distance. Daniel ran his hand down one of the logs, admiring the ingenuity.

“I painted that one myself.”

He’d recognize that voice anywhere. Daniel wheeled and Pippa stood next to him, dressed in her cabin boy clothing and with a smirk on her face.

He grabbed her elbow. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m doing my part for the Revolution.” She wrenched her elbow away from his grasp. “I’ve decided to side with America instead of England.”

Daniel’s drooping body was like a plant which had just been given a healthy dose of water. He straightened and stared at her. Even in her boy’s clothing, with her hair tied back in a queue, she was exquisite. “So, you’re not running back across the Atlantic at your first opportunity?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll need to take care of my business from afar and hope for the best. But no, I can’t side with the British anymore.”

A British Heiress in America is available for pre-order now here: https://www.amazon.com/British-Heiress-America-Revolutionary-Women-ebook/dp/B089RNSY3P