Visitors to Colonial Williamsburg will recognize the setting of this fictional history.  Its action takes place in many of Williamburg's exhibition buildings--the Capitol, Governor's Palace, the Courthouse, and Raleigh Tavern.  Also familiar are most of the historical characters in the background of the narrative:  Washington, Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and the Royal Governors Botetourt and Dunmore!

At the forefront of the drama are two fictional characters:  one is Kathryn Sheridan, a "prodigiously handsome widow," who arrives in colonial Virginia from London with a shadowy past and a hidden mission--to spy on the colony's governor.

She meets James Leslie, a Boston merchant and militia captain who is allied with Samuel Adams and the incendiary Massachusetts Sons of Liberty.  He also has a secret agenda:  to encourage opposition to the Crown in Virginia.  Sheridan and Leslie are drawn to each other, but are repelled by their political differences.  She is a staunch loyalist;  he is a rebel.  Their love-hate relationship is carried, in this blend of history and fiction, through the tumultuous yeaers just before the War for Independence, as Virginians lead the colony to its fateful clash with Britain.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jack McLaughlin, Emeritus Professor of English and Humanities at Clemson University, resides with his wife, Joan, at Clemson, SC.  Among his other books are To His Excellency Thomas Jeffferson, Letters to a President, (Norton) and Jefferson and Monticello, the Biography of a Builder (Henry Holt), a finalist for the National Book Award.

READ THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS of Williamsburg by clicking on the chapter titles at the upper left.  Further chapters will appear later.  For a copy of the book turn to Amazon.com.