Nancy Blanton is an American author of Irish descent. A former journalist, she’s written four award-winning novels rooted in 17th century Irish history. Her first novel, Sharavogue, takes place in the lawless West Indies on the island of Montserrat, where the protagonist struggles to survive the slavery, disease, kindness, and brutality of an Irish-owned sugar plantation.
By Nancy Blanton
It is December of 1649 as England’s uncrowned king, Oliver Cromwell, leads his new model army across Ireland to crush a violent rebellion. As the relentless cavalry approaches, Elvy Burke knows she will not give up easily. When Cromwell cruelly beheads a village boy, Elvy vows to destroy him. After escaping from his soldiers, she aligns with a Scottish outlaw whose schemes send them headlong into a tumultuous journey across the sea to the West Indies, where she learns to survive under impossible conditions and discovers the depth of her own strengths and emotions. Sharavogue is the compelling story of one girl’s journey and unwavering belief in destiny.
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By Richard Ligon
If you want to know exactly what things looked like and what living in Barbados felt like in the 17th century, this is the book. Originally published in 1657, this is like a travelogue of the Island that became a prosperous English colony known for its sugar plantations, rum, and slave trade. Ligon was a royalist in exile during the English civil war.
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By Donald Harman Akenson
Akenson’s book opened my eyes to the small island of Montserrat and the Irish colony that became the setting of my first novel, Sharavogue. Mostly overlooked by the English, the island became a haven for Irish settlers who established sugar and tobacco plantations. In addition to descriptions of the location and industry, this book explores whether the Irish, given the opportunity to control an empire, would be more humane than the English.
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By Richard S. Dunn
My copy is loaded with underlines, dogears, and stickies to signify the wealth of information provided, particularly on the West Indies slave trade. From the geography of the islands to architecture, planting schedules, clothing fabrics, political corruption, and the slave market, Dunn covers everything in an interesting and illuminating way.
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By Kate McCafferty
This novel, set in the time of Oliver Cromwell, is about a girl kidnapped from her Galway home and shipped to Barbados to be sold as an indentured servant to work alongside African slaves. We learn of her life as she gives testimony to an English officer after a failed rebellion. Well researched and powerfully written, one can feel the anger and bitterness of her oppressed existence, and her fierce passion for her African rebel husband. It brings history to life.
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By Matthew Parker
For perhaps 200 years after 1650, sugar became such a valuable commodity it became known as “white gold.” This book gives the broad and sweeping history of the conflicts over control of the sugar trade, the slave trade, and the wealth that ultimately led to the Industrial Revolution. It also provides intimate details of the families whose fortunes depended on sugar.
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