Award-winning novelist B.B. Shamp will introduce readers to the world of bustling and contentious eighteenth-century seaport Oxford, Maryland in a reading and conversation based on her latest novel, A Wife in Watercolor, at the historic Robert Morris Inn on April 23, 2022.
Shamp will discuss her book and sign copies in the Inn’s dining room at 4 pm, following annual town festivities known as Oxford Day. Books will be available for purchase on site from independent bookstore Mystery Loves Company. Complimentary canapés will be provided by the author and publisher, with drinks available from the bar.
A Selbyville, Delaware writer who specializes in deep historical research and sharply drawn characters, Shamp re-imagines a Chesapeake Bay town and plantation society dominated by powerful merchant Robert Morris, whose son, Robert Morris Jr., later moved to Philadelphia and gained renown as a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the financier of the American Revolution.
In Shamp’s telling, a White widow who is half-housekeeper, half-mistress; a love-crossed African woman who is half-friend but all-slave; and a young Dutch girl who lives on the margins of society in the cypress swamps, take turns telling the story of a tumultuous period of American history in their own distinct voices.
Unlike traditional narratives of the Colonial period, A Wife in Watercolor emphasizes what the struggle for freedom felt like from the perspective of women. And, in the cruelest irony, the novel dramatizes the ways in which the quest for liberty set enslaved Black women and “free” but vulnerable White women at odds with each other – even when they shared the same roof and long friendship.
“B.B. Shamp’s account of pre-Revolutionary America closely examines the roots of not just patriarchy and control, but the efforts of two very different women who come to share similar dreams of empowerment and freedom against impossible odds,” says D. Donovan, senior reviewer, Midwest Book Review.
Adds Harold O. Wilson of Delmarva Public Radio: “Barbara Shamp has given us a heavily researched historical novel, extremely well written, and expansive in its coverage of the diverse ethnic populations on the Eastern Shore at that time. As a novel, it also has a depth of expression that lays bare the nature of the human condition.”
Shamp, who won awards from the Delaware Press Association and the National Federation of Press Women for her earlier novel Third Haven, enmeshes a suspenseful story line in a convincing setting of periwigs and pattens, yeomen and enslaved workers, tobacco fields and dining rooms.
Shamp’s research began in the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University, where she found Robert Morris, Sr.’s last will and testament. The will mentions Sarah, Yearie, and Jackson, an enslaved man whom Morris deemed “worthless.” At the Maryland Archives in Annapolis, she discovered the 1747 Talbot County Court record of lawsuits and the truth of Robert Morris’s relationship with his son, Robert Morris, Jr.
Says Shamp: “What really matters to me is that my readers are enriched…that the language, the characters, the complicated plot make a compelling experience for them, one that sits in their hearts after the book is closed.”
Full of twists and turns with a surprise ending, A Wife in Watercolor will prove a gripping read for lovers of both history and suspense. It is available at local bookstores throughout Delmarva and from all major online retailers.
If you are interested in attending the April 23 event please reply at the Mystery Loves Company Facebook page or the Robert Morris Inn Facebook page. Mystery Loves Company is accepting orders for author signed copies.
To schedule speaking engagements, book club invitations and signings, contact bbshamp@gmail.com.
For information on the publisher and to order copies of the book in either hardcover or paperback editions, see www.secantpublishing.com.
# # #
