“Richly detailed, vividly depicted, and sweeping in scope, Island Queen is historical fiction at its absolute finest. A stunning must-read!”—Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba
A remarkable, sweeping historical novel based on the incredible
true life story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free woman of color who rose from
slavery to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the
colonial West Indies.
Born
into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, Doll bought her
freedom—and that of her sister and her mother—from her Irish planter father and
built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and
planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica
and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American
continent.
Vanessa
Riley’s novel brings Doll to vivid life as she rises above the harsh realities
of slavery and colonialism by working the system and leveraging the competing
attentions of the men in her life: a restless shipping merchant, Joseph Thomas;
a wealthy planter hiding a secret, John Coseveldt Cells; and a roguish naval
captain who will later become King William IV of England.
From
the bustling port cities of the West Indies to the forbidding drawing rooms of
London’s elite, Island Queen is a sweeping epic of an adventurer and a
survivor who answered to no one but herself as she rose to power and autonomy
against all odds, defying rigid eighteenth-century morality and the oppression
of women as well as people of color. It is an unforgettable portrait of a true
larger-than-life woman who made her mark on history.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
