Highlighting Historical Romance with Becky Lower on cross-dressing, Dorchester Heights, and driving the British from Boston
Even though by today’s standards a woman dressing as a boy is not necessary or even insulting, it’s important to remember that throughout history, women did not have the same rights as men. If you want to be authentic to the period in which you write, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the people living through it. I always try to incorporate as much history as possible into my stories and not use the times as merely a backdrop. My heroines have to be elbow-deep in the events of the day. Even if it means wearing the clothes of a boy.
In Book One of my new Revolutionary Women series, A British Heiress in America, Lady Pippa Worthington has no choice, in her mind at least, but to don a boy’s clothing and pretend to be a gender she’s not in order to escape an arranged marriage. She’s soon enough exposed by the ship captain, and by the time she gets to Boston, she sheds her boy’s attire and is a beautiful young lady who becomes the belle of Boston Tory society.
That poses its own problems, since, as a finely-bred lady, she needs an escort, especially in the unruly streets of Boston, if she’s to set foot outside her aunt’s home. In order to satisfy her need for excitement, not to mention her penchant for a fine cheroot, she dons her boy’s clothing and prowls the streets at night. On one of these forays out of the home, she runs into one of the Sons of Liberty, who is recruiting people to help with some subterfuge.
She joins in with a thousand other Bostonians to set up the fifty-nine cannons that have made a grueling trip from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York in the dead of winter. Wrapping their wagon wheels with straw to deaden the sound, they moved the cannon from Roxbury and worked by dark of night to place the cannons atop Dorchester Heights overlooking the harbor, which was chock full of British ships who had closed off the harbor for eleven months, making life miserable for the city.
The Evacuation
What the British didn’t know when dawn came and they saw all those cannons trained on their ships, was they were part of a big bluff by the Americans. There was only enough cannon balls and ammunition to fire off a few warning shots. Even the show of might was false, as some of the cannons were nothing more than logs painted black to resemble cannons, at least from a distance. Pippa, in her boy’s clothing, was not the only bluff going on during what is now known in Boston as Evacuation Day, when the British ships left the harbor and headed to Nova Scotia. March 17 is still a cause for celebration each spring in Boston.
About the Book
Lady Philippa Worthington wants to marry young and sexy.
Her father plans for her to marry stodgy…old…and rich.
What’s a beautiful British heiress to do if she’s going to escape a life of passionless marriage? With her father planning to sell her off to the highest bidder in order to support his own lavish lifestyle, Pippa knows there’s only one thing she can do to save herself.
Lady Philippa dons boys’ clothing and stows away on a London ship destined for the American colonies and a new life. One full of hope, freedom, and the chance to finally live up to her feisty nickname among the rough sailors—‘Pip.’
But instead of finding independence on the high seas, Pippa is plunged deep into the dangerous world of espionage–and the arms of handsome Daniel Simmons, a merchant sailor for the British—who is also an American Revolutionary spy!
Torn between allegiance to her home country and the passion she’s always been searching for, Pippa now faces an unexpected threat—and it may cost Pippa and Daniel the very freedom—and love—they’ve both been searching for.
If they manage to survive the very heart of the beginnings of the Revolutionary War, can the daring spy find love in the arms of A BRITISH HEIRESS IN AMERICA?
About the Author
Amazon best-selling author Becky Lower has traveled the country looking for great settings for her novels. She loves to write about two people finding each other and falling in love, amid the backdrop of a great setting. Becky has a degree in English and Journalism from Bowling Green State University, and lives in an eclectic village in the Sandhills region of North Carolina with her puppy-mill rescue dog, Mary. She loves to hear from her readers at beckylowerauthor@gmail.com.
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Thanks, Caroline, for inviting me here today. I love writing about the Revolutionary War, since the cause was so just, and there are so many great stories to be told.