Motherhood is a major theme in my upcoming historical fiction novel, Hatfield 1677, to be officially released May 21, 2024.

Martha Waite is only 28 years old and five months pregnant when she is abducted by an Algonquian band, along with her three little daughters: Mary, age 5; Mattie, age 4; and Sally, just two. Her resolute yet forgiving nature and love for her children and husband, Benjamin, sustain her on the forced 300-mile journey through the wilderness from western Massachusetts to Canada.

Martha’s friend Hannah, whose husband Stephen joins Benjamin in pursuit of the captives, is also a young mother, but unlike Martha, she is scarred by past tragedy, and fearful of far more than their captors.

Mary Foote is outwardly the most defiant of the three women, but when her three-year-old daughter Molly falls ill, she turns to her captors as well as her friends for help.

I hope readers engage with these three women, wives and mothers thrown into a situation that tests them to their very souls. Three hundred forty seven years ago women were allowed very little agency, but when their children and survival were threatened, these three women took charge of their fates.