Mary

What if an English boy and a native girl met in the wilderness? The push-and-pull between two very different worlds begins as one seeks simple friendship and the other struggles to trust. And can it–dare they–allow it to be more?

Sparks fly between Mushaniq, free-spirited daughter of Manteo, and Georgie Howe, whose father was brutally murdered by undiscovered native warriors before they’d been on Roanoac Island a full week. As Georgie struggles to make sense of his life and to accept that not all they call “savage” are guilty of his father’s death, Mushaniq grapples with her own questions about who Manteo has become. As tentative friendship becomes more, forged in the fire of calamity and attack upon their community, both must decide whether the One True God is indeed who He claims to be and whether He is worthy of their trust.

[From the author’s note] One writer whose Lost Colony work I have closely followed has said he would love to see a “tremendous love story” told in fiction between the two peoples—how the Natives welcomed the beleaguered English and how they all sought to live together, as John White envisioned, as one community, of one heart, one mind. And so I offer you Mary, which serves both as a parallel story to Elinor and a sequel. I recommend you read that one first, but even if you haven’t, mayhap you will be curious enough afterward to read Elinor’s own story, with that of her father, John White, and the Secotan warrior Sees Far.

Thank you, as always, for taking this journey with me!