My name is Resolute

My name is resolute by Nancy E Turner

This is a this is an historical novel set in the 18th and 19th century, written by a very good author.
The story opens in 1729 and tells  the life of Resolute Talbert who is  pre-adolescent when the story starts. Resolute and her family are of noble class that have been sent by the King of England to manage a slave plantation in Jamaica. Their life is easy and carefree until one day they are raided by pirates. Their grand house is burnt, their parents are killed and Resolute and her sister Patience and brother are taken captive.

After a dreadful and cruel sea voyage to New England the girls are sold into slavery and the brother pressed into being a pirate. Resolute and Patience are treated very poorly and made to work befitting servants. They are given little to eat but deliverance comes when a raid by Indians captures the girls and transports them to Québec.   They are passed on to a convent, and treated like indentureded servants. Work at the convent includes working in the flax fields, spinning and weaving. Their work is  hard but they still  yearn for freedom and for Resolute it is a matter of finding her way back home to Jamaica. Her elder sister Patience realizes that this is a just a wild dream.

Escape comes when the girls make a  run for it and Patience decides to go to join and marry the Indian who helps them escape but Resolute is determined to go back to find a way to Jamaica. Resolute  then makes her own way and finds herself eventually in Lexington in Massachusetts. She is befriended by a crazy  and old, out- cast, village woman. Gradually she learns to fit into the village.

She becomes friendly with some higher class people who think she is a noblewoman from Jamaica.She becomes engaged to a nobleman who says he will take her to Jamaica. Unfortunately before this can happen, papers come through that prove that her parents have died and the King of England has given the plantation and land to another nobleman and she has no title to it so she becomes destitute again. The old village woman helps her  by giving her an old dilapidated cottage and suggests that she can become a spinner and weaver by trade. This she does very successfully and later on marries a woodworker, becoming successful at her trade and then she has her own family.

The last part of the book deals with the American colonies breaking away from the British Crown. Resolute and her family are very much involved in the struggle.
This is the part of the book that really intrigued me as I did not realize completely the heavy taxation burdens that were put on the colonials at that time without any representation in Parliament. I can now see why they wanted to break from English rule.
This is indeed a long saga to read but very readable and if you enjoy history and a good story line, you should enjoy it.