Gallows Road - Brownell, Lisa Hall

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Résumé :
A beautiful young servant is condemned to death for a crime that she swears she did not commit. Inspired by true events in 1750s Connecticut, Gallows Road takes readers on a harrowing journey of love, betrayal, and injustice. Chafing against the strict confines of her life as an indentured servant, Mercy Bramble finds herself in a destructive relationship with her master, leading to her pregnancy. The mysterious death of her newborn puts Mercy's life in the hands of a jury, while three clergymen fight to save her soul. Raising issues of patriarchy, literacy, religious dogmatism, and capital punishment, Gallows Road builds to a climax that Kirkus Reviews calls a nail-biter all the way. Indentured servants - white or Native American men and women who often worked alongside black slaves - were forbidden to marry during the seven years they were bonded to service. Illegitimate births were common, and unwed mothers faced heavy fines and extended servitude. Set in a multiracial household in colonial New England, Gallows Roadsheds light on an often-forgotten chapter in America's past....

Biographie:
LISA HALL BROWNELL, a fiction writer and editor, believes that stories have the power to connect one person to another, and past to present. She graduated from Brown University, and earned an M.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from San Francisco State University. Now a freelance writer, she lives in southeastern Connecticut. She has written two novels, as well as several screenplays and short stories. A former media director for Mystic Seaport Museum and director of publications for Connecticut College, Brownell edited and wrote for an award-winning magazine with 30,000 readers. A member of the Mystic Writers, she recently helped to launch the group's website and blog. https://mysticwriters.org