mary ellen barnes

The true story of one woman's indomitable spirit and her love for the hawks she raises in the time of Charles I of England, Cromwell, and the New Colonies. Frances Latham, daughter of the royal falconer, is expected to tend her brothers and marry a farmer's son, but she yearns for freedom to study in London, to hunt with the hawks she loves, and to marry at her will.

Her spirit will carry her from a stifling country life to the bustling streets of London, through the harrowing hell of the plague, and eventually to the shores of the New World where Frances struggles to raise eleven children and pass on a better legacy than the one she endured. History buffs will become immersed in this panorama of the English court, country life, the grueling voyage to colonial America, the harsh life settlers endured on its shores, and encounters with Anne Hutchinson and Miantonomi, the Narragansett sachem.