Creativity is such a fascinating thing. One idea or research trail leads to another. Often novels birth more novels. As I wrote The Belle of Chatham, our hero’s sister, Bronwyn Harlow, materialized in my mind. Often these characters are unbidden & unplanned. They just appear in a scene & start talking or doing, especially if you’re not a novel planner but more of a wing-it-and-watch-what-happens like me. I found Bronwyn Harlow to be the most deserving of characters in the novel. She’d also suffered a grievous loss in the Battle of Great Bridge, December 1775, before the American Revolution officially began.
I’d written about that particular Virginia battle in The Lacemaker. I revisited it & remembered no Patriots died in that conflict. Only one was injured in the hand. The British had a death toll of one hundred or more in what was touted as a victory for the Americans, ridding Virginia of their last royal governor, Lord Dunmore, forever. So, Bronwyn’s loss may have not been as she’d been told yet she continued to mourn, thinking him gone, but there had been no body, no burial. This isn’t or wasn’t uncommon at that time. Truth really is stranger than fiction. I asked readers on my social media what they envision for Bronwyn. So many inspiring possibilities!
So, look for Bronwyn’s story down the road. It’s a bumpy one but has a hope-filled, happy ending!