by Jim Duggins
Historical Fiction
[ To be released fall 2009 ]
When Vodoo Queen, Reyna Royale, agrees to join the underground railroad, she has no idea of the size of the country she must travel or the minute-by-minute danger she must face as a “Slave Stealer,” one who helps slaves escape from bondage. As she crisscrosses the country disguised as a peddler boy, a jockey, a Quaker, an Indian princess, her intelligence and daring save her from bounty hunting slave catchers and blood thirsty owners. Marshals surround her house in Virginia, her fashionable town house in Boston, and President’s Island in the Mississippi River, but Reyna is always just a step ahead of the slave catchers. Edward Shield adopts her as his ward and leaves her his fortune. King Hawk, a Natick Indian whaling man, gives the final days of his life to her protection. Charles Pilar, a Canadian trapper, whom the Indians call Ochoaka for his “sky blue eyes,” and handsome Ned Fielder, her foreman and right hand man in the underground, fall hopelessly in love with her. Despite the love she inspires, passionate and avuncular, her suitors and protectors recognize that Reyna has a single goal: to lead her people to freedom.
Read the Excerpt