MATILDA OF ARGYLL is a bold and dramatic adventure, ripped from the pages of history, seen through the eyes and told from the heart of those who lived through this epic period. 

Historian Sarah Chloe Burns reaches back in time to recap the blending of French and English royalty following William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings (1036 A.D.).  Chapter one begins with a conversation which might have occurred between his granddaughter Matilda and her husband—Geoffrey Plantagenet—in Angers, France (1136 A.D.).  The true story of this historic Matilda sets the backdrop for a dramatic tale which could have connected her bloodline to the future, fictional Matilda of Argyll. 

As Matilda Campbell’s story begins in1638, this high-spirited and intelligent nineteen-year-old Scot is unwilling to accept society’s rules and barriers regarding gender and class.  Her penchant for independent thinking will take her far—eventually across the ocean to Jamestown, Virginia—but at what cost?  There, she will witness race and class distinction of a manner she could never have imagined.    

Stretching from London City, England to the Scottish Highlands; from Mali, Africa to the West Indies, the story lines of Scottish, English and African peoples of many classes will intersect in an intensely dramatic fashion.  What makes Matilda a truly entertaining and enlightening experience is the manner in which Burns weaves the pages of recorded history, and the footsteps of those who made that history, with her colorful fictional characters.


THE REVIEWS ARE IN!!

HR

As Theresa Hornstein of Lake Superior College writes:

“…Sarah Burns brings the early years of American history and its links to England and Scotland to life through the melding of lives so different yet so intimately linked.  From the mythological founding of the family lines through African captives, French royalty and Highland families to the settlements at Jamestown, Matilda’s line produces strong women who deal with whatever life gives them.  These women are bound by social conventions but gifted with hearts and minds that need more.  This was a hard time for women.  Childbirth often brought a mother’s death.  Social conditions forced women into prostitution and the lack of effective birth control made abortions commonplace and life-threatening.  A “respectable” gentleman had his whore on the side, but no “respectable” woman even thought about any man but her husband.  The records of history are filled with great battles and meetings of the powerful, but it is the day-to-day events that define a people.  The interweaving of the families, their lives, their dreams, and their desires all seasoned with the oversight of the gods and goddesses paints a fuller picture than I have ever read before.”

HR

Marie A. Conn, Ph.D., Author of Noble Daughters; Unheralded Women in Western Christianity, 13th to 18th Centuries, writes:

 “A few years ago, I had the pleasure of being part of a gathering of scholars interested in women’s history as part of the Oxford Round Table.  It was there that I met Sarah Chloe Burns.  When she asked me to write a Foreword for Matilda of Argyll, I accepted immediately, knowing what a welcome contribution Sarah’s book would make to the field of women’s studies.  Those of us engaged in Women’s History realize that much of our work involves reading and interpreting the silences.  The story of women and their place in society over the ages is often called the underside of history.  In her new edition of Matilda of Argyll, Sarah has once again managed to weave vast slices of recorded history with the stories of fictional characters who are richly and lovingly drawn.  The work of revising, the painful task of letting go of some cherished sections of the original while expanding the historical context, has yielded an eminently readable and engaging story.  Sarah continues to help a wider audience to appreciate this important but still under-explored dimension in the evolving story of humanity.”