Book Description

In the autumn of 1775, the year prior to the Battle of Long Island, four young women meet their destinies at an inn called Harts Tavern on the south shore of Long Island. Hannah Hart is the motherless 14-year-old daughter of Peter Hart, the inns proprietor. She is strong, independent and curious, with a thirst for intellectual discovery. Yet her days are occupied with chores and caring for guests at the inn. Evie is their slave who was sold to Peter Hart when she was just a little girl. She is in love with a Patriot spy and longs to be free. Violet White is the beautiful schoolmistress who came to America to seek adventure, but who finds herself caught in the dilemma of being a loyal British subject among the colonists who no longer view themselves as such. Wyanjoy is a Native American, one of the last members of the Secatogue tribe that inhabits the outskirts of town. She is pregnant, unmarried, and sees the members of her tribe dying off from disease brought by the white men. Set against the background of the British occupation of Long Island the women find themselves caught up in historic and profound change and hardship in the midst of trying to figure out their own destinies.