A Wife in Watercolor
by B. B. Shamp

Publication Date: November 16, 2021
Secant Publishing, LLC
Hardcover, Paperback & eBook

Genre: Historical African Fiction

 

 

One woman’s status is seared into her skin. The other has no freedom. Can they disrupt a colony built on privilege before they face the gallows?

Chesapeake Bay, 1747. Sarah Wise would give anything to feel safe. Homeless and mourning her kidnapped little girl, the widowed housekeeper makes a shrewd decision to accept a marriage offer from wealthy shipping tradesman Robert Morris, Sr. But after she witnesses the abuse of his slaves and he brands her with the company seal, she’s petrified she’ll always be a mistress and never a wife.

Yearie longs for a more just system. Endlessly loyal to the young mother who controls her manumission, the enslaved woman works hard to open her owner’s eyes to the cruelty of their master-servant culture. But as her heart burns for a man she can’t openly love and her calculated disruptions draw unwanted attention, she’s terrified change is slowly slipping through her fingers.

Heeding Yearie’s outcry, Sarah secretly teams up with an underground network to put right what she can in their master’s business dealings. And with Yearie clearing the path for revolution but still hopelessly hitched to the wrong wagon, she fears she’s made a costly mistake in laying her freedom in Sarah’s hands.

Will their courageous play for a modicum of respect push them both into an unmarked grave?

In this harrowing journey into pre-Revolutionary America, B.B. Shamp brings to life the true fighting spirit of women suffering under an iron-fisted patriarchal society. Transporting you to a fascinating era and revealing the vivid voice of unsung champions and their richly detailed fight for survival, you’ll be gripped all the way to its shocking conclusion.

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About the Author

B.B. Shamp grew up in the Washington, D.C. metro area, a victim of wholesale parochial education offset by a wild imagination and a burgeoning resistance to uniformity. She began journaling at the age of nine, wrote her first short story based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew at eleven, then dusted off her hands and put it in a drawer. Years later, a career teaching public high school ended when she fell off a ladder, blew a slew of pulmonary embolisms and suffered a near death experience. Rehabilitation included journaling, and suddenly she was reborn to what she loved best: writing.

Her first contemporary mystery/suspense novel, Third Haven earned first place with both the Delaware Press Association and the National Federation of Press Women. A sequel, The Grist Mill Bone, was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award and Eric Hoffer’s Da Vinci Eye Award for cover design.

B.B. Shamp lives on an inland tidal bay where a moment of Zen can be found in the tilt of a blue heron’s long neck, a broad sweep of serrated clouds, or a mundane conversation about crabs with a local waterman. Her passions include environmental advocacy, improving education policy, and providing college scholarships to young women. She is forevermore, a writer.

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