This HaBO is from Steve of the Browne Popular Culture Library! He’s hoping to find this book for a patron:
We had a patron come to us looking for an 80s Revolutionary War historical, and it’s stumped me but I feel like it’d be perfect for HABO:
It is a historical romance set in the Revolutionary War. It was published in the early to mid 80s I believe. Here’s what I remember:
The heroine, whose name I think is Kerry, is an Irish beauty who is clever and does not want to spend her life as a servant. She and her fiance are going to go to the city and find a ship who will take them as indentured servants to America. Her fiance decides at the last minute to stay (he’s having an affair with the mistress of the manor) and our heroine sets off on her own, brokenhearted.
On the ship she meets another young Irish girl, who is also going to America as an indentured servant. They become friends. Kerry hopes not to be purchased by a man who wants her because she is beautiful and her friend hopes to be purchased by a craftsman so she can learn a livelihood. They land in America and the auction is witnessed by our hero who has just met an old friend.
Our hero’s name is Morgan (I think). He is the second son of a landowner and needs to marry an heiress, but he is caught by Kerry’s beauty. The friend’s indenture is bought by a baker, but Kerry is about to be purchased by a creepy old guy and Morgan gives his friend the money needed to buy her indenture. Kerry goes home with the man who owns her indenture. He is a sick older gentleman who is a tinsmith with a failing shop. Kerry cleans up his house and starts taking care of him. She convinces the apprentice who works at the shop to follow some of her suggestions to improve business. He resists at first, but Kerry cajoles him and claims that all these suggestions are from the owner. Business improves.
Morgan keeps coming by and he and Kerry fall in love, but he still needs to marry an heiress, now even more because his brother has run the family farm into the ground and has died. Morgan has to marry money to save his family home.
Kerry is broken hearted again but determined to carry on. She has Jaimie, the apprentice tin smith, make bread boxes that she then pays her friend from the ship who is working for the baker down the street to paint them. They are super popular and everyone wants one. There is a part where the old man dies and frees Kerry and leaves her his shop and all his properties. He had no family and they became close.
She continues to improve the tin smith business and all the other business that the old man left her. She creates a money making opportunity by convincing all the young British officers to buy tin suits of armor for the joust they are having. She also buys a crate of material and fashion dolls. She then charges all the high society women in the town a bunch of money to get a look at the new fashions that are coming out of Paris. She has bought up all the lace and trimmings as well, so she pretty much can charge what she wants for these women to get the latest dresses. She also figures out a way to make a spice box that the American rebels can easily turn into a cartouche box. The British soldiers question her about this because she owns the shop, and I think she gets arrested.
Morgan eventually realizes he loves her no matter what and breaks off his engagement to the heiress. There’s a little side story where the heiress turns her sights on Benedict Arnold, but he runs off with Peggy Shippen. Morgan joins the Continental Army and goes off to fight. Kerry sells all her business holdings and while he is gone turns her attention to making his run down plantation successful which she does. He comes home after fighting and they live happily ever after.
With all this happening, I fully expect this book to be 800 pages.
I don’t know the book, but it would take place in Philadelphia if that helps in the search. The joust that is referenced in the HABO is The Meschianza which was a big party thrown by the British forces in 1778. (Also the reference to Benedict Arnold and Peggy Shippen, which took place in Philly.)
I am dying to hear the answer…hope someone has it!
This sounds like ENTICED by Virginia Henley. The heroine is Kitty, an Irish servant who gets sold into slavery in America. She ends up marrying a guy named Charles but the real hero is Patrick, an Irish landowner (he and Kitty had something going on before she left for America).
I don’t remember much about this one so I can’t say that the other details are ringing a bell, I just recall that there were a LOT of hijinks and a LOT of plot.
I read this a VERY long time ago, and didn’t like it as there are a lot of major issues with the content.
Goodness, what a lot of detail provided. I have no idea what book it is, but sure is a vivid retelling of the story.
I second Enticed. It’s super crazy and very problematic.
The heroine sounds like a business dynamo, and the hero doesn’t deserve her.
1) Totally impressed with Steve’s memory!
2) Was going to say, “Peggy Shippen, Benedict Arnold? Definitely Philly” but @Janine got to it really quickly! Thanks for mentioning that yearly ball; it dragged out ancient memories of reading about it & the incredibly active social lives of (wealthy, white) Philadelphians during the Revolution. Good to know that I’ll have plenty of stuff left to talk about when my short-term memory goes.
3) It is definitely NOT “Enticed” (originally published as “The Irish Gypsy” – grrrr…). There are some detailed reviews over @ Goodreads; at least one of them sets that book as Victorian-era, so that’s 60+ years later than the Revolution. The hero of the HaBO doesn’t sound at all like the (typical Henley rapey) alphahole “hero” of “Enticed”. There’s none of the HaBO detail about the heroine’s business acumen and creativity. I could go on, quoting from the Goodreads reviews by readers who know “Enticed” extremely well, but y’all can read them for yourselves. I think you’ll agree. So the hunt must continue. I hope someone remembers the HaBO. I’d like to revisit my hometown in the late 18th century again.
I looked through Cynthia Wright’s backlist, but the plot doesn’t match up to her Colonial/Revolutionary books.