In “Etched in Granite,” we came to know Abigail, Silas, Nellie, and the others. Their tales, carefully woven together, bound by their afflictions and the will to survive, do not end here. The stories hidden beneath anonymous graves go well beyond the discovery of the 298, spanning generations, oceans, and even continents. This flame may be that of a single candle, subtle light within infinite darkness, with a promise to burn brightly. For the Hodgdon sisters — Abigail and Sarah — 1872 is a year of reckoning. Alone and determined, 17-year-old Sarah Hodgdon boards a train, trading farm life in New Hampshire for the textile mills of Fall River. Woefully disillusioned, she finds herself trapped within the confines of a brutal factory and a filthy, crowded tenement.
Her torment wildly escalates when she learns the fate of her family —her sister locked away in the County Farm, and her mother’s remains scattered amongst the charred ruins of their beloved home.
About to drown in a sea of spindles, she meets lamplighter, August Wood, who illuminates the gap between the affluent and the undesirables that dwell in the murky shadows.
Stripped down to her bare instincts, she retreats into a secret world, that if revealed, would shatter all that remains. Everything collides when Bess, the captivating, young woman across town, emerges, navigating the dense world of the local elite, offering a glimpse into an era when women were beginning to take the stage. Survival, a resilient thread of music, interweaves their compelling stories, uniting them, and unveiling grievous misdeeds from the past. AVAILABLE IN PRINT AND KINDLE NOW ON AMAZON* AND MY WEBSITE COMING TO BOOKSTORES AND LIBRARIES IN JANUARY