ABOUT THE BOOK
Recently widowed, Rebecca Parcell is too busy struggling to maintain her farm in Morristown to give a fig who wins the War for Independence. But rumors are spreading in the winter of 1780 that she’s a Loyalist sympathizer who betrayed her husband to the British—quite a tidy way to end her disastrous marriage, the village gossips whisper.
Everyone knows that her husband was a Patriot, a hero who died aboard a British prison ship moored in New York Harbor. But “everyone” is wrong. Parcell was a British spy, and General Washington—who spent that winter in Morristown—can prove it. He swears he’ll safeguard Becca’s farm if she unravels her husband’s secrets. With a mob ready to exile her or worse, it’s an offer she can’t refuse.
Escaped British prisoner of war Daniel Alloway was the last person to see Becca’s husband alive, and Washington throws this unlikely couple together on an espionage mission to British-occupied New York City. Moving from glittering balls to an underworld of brothels and prisons, Becca and Daniel uncover a plot that threatens the new country’s future. But will they move quickly enough to warn General Washington? And can Becca, who’s lost almost everyone she loves, fight her growing attraction to Daniel, a man who always moves on?
Book Details:
Title: The Turncoat’s Widow
Author’s name:
Mally Becker
Genre: Historical mystery/suspense with elements of
romance
Series: Revolutionary War mystery, book 1
Publisher:
Historia/Level Best Books (February 16, 2021)
Print length: 300 pages
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH MALLY BECKER
A few of your favorite things: the first Valentine’s Day gift my husband gave me. A drawing my son made for me in pre-school. My mom’s wooden recipe box.
Things you need to throw out: ouch. All the unfinished craft projects that have been banished to the guest room closet. Turns out, I’m not as craftsy as I thought!
Things you need in order to write: coffee, sunlight, and more coffee.
Things that hamper your writing: perfectionism. The day’s creativity dries up if I stop to search for the perfect phrase or sentence, especially while writing a first draft.
Things you love about writing: I love when the characters take over and the story heads in a direction I didn’t foresee. Yes, that happens occasionally.
Things you hate about writing: there’s almost nothing I hate about writing, nothing except proofreading. By that stage of the game, I’ve read what I’ve written so often that I skip right over missing punctuation and words.
Things you love about where you live: New Jersey gets such a bad rap, but I love it here. My husband and I are an hour from the ocean, an hour from New York City and even closer to rivers, lakes and hiking trails. Most important, though, is that our son, my siblings, my dad and friends all live close by.
Things that make you want to move: New Jersey’s weather is pretty grim in February. In fact, all of us here in New Jersey are pretty grim in February.
Things you never want to run out of: I never want to run out of laughter, love, or reruns of old Mel Brooks movies.
Things you wish you’d never bought: beautiful notebooks. Although they make me melt, I buy too many. I’ll never get around to using them all.
Favorite foods: chocolate anything and everything, except for . . .
Things that make you want to throw up: . . . chocolate wine. Yes, there is such a thing.
Favorite smell: I love the scent of pine and spruce trees. It’s a wonderful Christmas smell, but you’ll also catch that scent if you breathe deeply while hiking in the Adirondacks on a sunny summer day.
Something that makes you hold your nose: burned popcorn, because the scent lasts all day.
Something you’re really good at: appearing calm in an emergency.
Something you’re really bad at: being calm in an emergency.
Things to say to an author: “I thought about your story today.” A librarian was kind enough to read a draft of The Turncoat’s Widow a few months ago. She told me that she thought about my main character when she drove by a place I’d described in my book. The fact that my story stayed with her as she was going about her day was tremendously flattering.
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “Would you like a few constructive suggestions about your last book?” Someone actually said that to one of my author friends.
Favorite places you’ve been: I’ve been visiting Lake Placid, New York, since I was a kid. That part of the world is my happy place. I also love Paris, and I’m hoping that the third book in my American Revolution series will take place there.
Places you never want to go to again: I am relieved that I will never again have to visit my son’s extremely large regional high school. He loved that school. But I have a terrible sense of direction. After four years, I still got lost on “back to school” night.
People you’d like to invite to dinner (living): oh, good. A dinner party! Ask Louise Penny and Lyndsay Faye, Barack and Michelle Obama, Stephen Colbert, and film producer Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”) if they’re free next Sunday at 7 pm. No need to dress up.
People you’d cancel dinner on: anyone who talks only about themselves and interrupts others as they speak.
Favorite things to do: COVID’s made me even more appreciative of my family. Spending time with any of them is my favorite thing.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: taking my car to have its oil changed. I dread hearing, “Well, little lady. Your car also needs an ….” expensive widget I’ve never heard of.
The last thing you did for the first time: sign a publishing contract for my debut novel, The Turncoat’s Widow.
Something you’ll never do again: ride down the Grand Canyon on the back of a mule. I needed to do that once, but once was enough.
EXCERPT FROM THE TURNCOAT'S WIDOW
Chapter One
Morristown – January 1780
There was a nervous rustling in the white-washed meeting house, a disturbance of air like the sound of sparrows taking wing.
Becca Parcell peered over the balcony’s rough, wood railing, blinking away the fog of half-sleep. She had been dreaming of the figures in her account book and wondering whether there would be enough money for seed this spring.
“I didn’t hear what ….” she whispered to Philip’s mother.
Lady Augusta Georgiana Stokes Parcell, known simply as Lady Augusta, covered Becca’s hand with her own. “Philip. They’re speaking of Philip.”
Becca couldn’t tell whether it was her hand or Augusta’s that trembled.
“The Bible says, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, does it not?” The preacher’s voice was soft, yet it carried to every corner of the congregation. “They’re here. Amongst us. Neighbors who toast the King behind closed doors. Neighbors with no love of liberty.”
Philip was a Patriot. He had died a hero. Everyone knew. Minister Townsend couldn’t be talking about him.
The minister raised his eyes to hers. With his long thin arms and legs and round belly, he reminded her of a spider. She twisted her lips into the semblance of a smile as if to say “you don’t scare me.” But he did.
“Which of your neighbors celebrates each time a Patriot dies?” Townsend’s voice rose like smoke to the rafters, took on strength and caught fire. “Their presence here is an abomination.” He rapped the podium with a flat palm, the sound bruising in the quiet church. “Then cast them out. Now.”
Men pounded the floor with their feet.
Becca flinched. It wouldn’t take much to tip the congregation into violence. Everyone had lost someone or something to this endless war. It had been going on for almost five years.
Townsend’s thin arm rose, pointing to her.
Becca’s breath caught.
“And what of widows like Mrs. Parcell? Left alone, no longer guided by the wise direction of their husbands.”
Guided? Becca pulled her hand from Augusta’s. She rubbed her thumb along the palm of her hand, feeling the rough calluses stamped there. She had learned the rhythm of the scythe at the end of the summer, how to twist and swing low until her hands were so stiff that she’d struggle to free them from the handle. She’d fallen into a dreamless sleep each night during the harvest too exhausted even to dream of Philip. She, Augusta and their servant Annie were doing just fine.
“He hardly slept at home, as I hear it,” a woman behind her sniffed to a neighbor.
Becca’s spine straightened.
“No wonder there were no babes,” the second woman murmured.
Becca twisted and nodded a smile to Mrs. Huber and Mrs. Harrington. Their mouths pursed into surprised tight circles. She’d heard them murmur, their mouths hidden by fluttering fans: About her lack of social graces; her friendship with servants; her awkward silence in company. “What else could you expect from her?” they would say, snapping shut their fans.
Relief washed through Becca, nonetheless. This was merely the old gossip, not the new rumors.
“Some of you thought Mr. Parcell was just another smuggler.” The pastor’s voice boomed.
A few in the congregation chuckled. It was illegal to sell food to the British in New York – the “London Trade” some called it — but most turned a blind eye. Even Patriots need hard currency to live, Becca recalled Philip saying.
“He only married her for the dowry,” Mrs. Huber hissed.
Becca’s hand curved into a fist.
Augusta cleared her throat, and Becca forced herself to relax.
“Perhaps some of you thought Mr. Parcell was still a Tory,” the minister said.
The chuckling died.
“He came to his senses, though. He was, after all, one of us,” Minister Townsend continued.
One of us. Invitations from the finer families had trickled away after Philip’s death.
“We all know his story,” Townsend continued. “He smuggled whiskey
into New York City. And what a perfect disguise his aristocratic roots
provided.” The minister lifted his nose in the air as if mimicking a
dandy.
“The British thought he was one of them, at least until the end.” The
minister’s voice swooped as if telling a story around a campfire. “He
brought home information about the British troops in the City.”
Becca shifted on the bench. She hadn’t known about her husband’s bravery until after his death. It had baffled her. Philip never spoke of politics.
Townsend lifted one finger to his chin as if he had a new thought. “But who told the British where Mr. Parcell would be on the day he was captured? Who told the Redcoats that Mr. Parcell was a spy for independence?”
Becca forgot to breathe. He wouldn’t dare.
“It must have been someone who knew him well.” The minister’s gaze
moved slowly through the congregation and came to rest on Becca. His
eyes were the color of creosote, dark and burning. “Very, very well.”
Mrs. Coddington, who sat to Becca’s left, pulled the hem of her black
silk gown close to avoid contact. Men in the front pews swiveled and
stared.
“I would never. I didn’t.” Becca’s corset gouged her ribcage.
“Speak up, Mrs. Parcell. We can’t hear you,” the minister said in a singsong voice.
Townsend might as well strip her naked before the entire town. Respectable women didn’t speak in public. He means to humiliate me.
“Stand up, Mrs. Parcell.” His voice boomed. “We all want to hear.”
She didn’t remember standing. But there she was, the fingers of her right hand curled as it held the hunting bow she’d used since she was a child. Becca turned back to the minister. “Hogwash.” If they didn’t think she was a lady, she need not act like one. “Your independence is a wickedly unfair thing if it lets you accuse me without proof.”
Gasps cascaded throughout the darkening church.
From the balcony, where slaves and servants sat, she heard two coughs, explosive as gun fire. She twisted. Carl scowled down at her in warning. His white halo of hair, fine as duckling feathers, seemed to stand on end. He had worked for her father and helped to raise her. He had taught her numbers and mathematics. She couldn’t remember life without him.
“Accuse? Accuse you of what, Mrs. Parcell?” The minister opened his arms to the congregation. “What have we accused you of?”
Becca didn’t feel the chill now. “Of killing my husband. If this is what your new nation stands for – neighbors accusing neighbors, dividing us with lies – I'll have none of it. “Five years into this endless war, is anyone better off for Congress’ Declaration of Independence? Independence won’t pay for food. It won’t bring my husband home.”
It was as if she’d burst into flames. “What has the war brought any of us? Heartache, is all. Curse your independence. Curse you for ….”
Augusta yanked on Becca’s gown with such force that she teetered, then rocked back onto the bench.
The church erupted in shouts, a crashing wave of sound meant to crush her.
Becca’s breath came in short puffs. What had she done?
“Now that’s just grief speaking, gentlemen. Mrs. Parcell is still
mourning her husband. No need to get worked up.” The voice rose from the
front row. She recognized Thomas Lockwood’s slow, confident drawl.
She craned her neck to watch Thomas, with his wheat-colored hair and
wide shoulders. His broad stance reminded her of a captain at the wheel.
He was a gentleman, a friend of General Washington. They’ll listen to
him, she thought.
“Our minister doesn’t mean to accuse Mrs. Parcell of anything, now do you, sir?”
The two men stared at each other. A minister depended on the good will of gentlemen like Thomas Lockwood.
The pastor blinked first. He shook his head.
Becca’s breathing slowed.
“There now. As I said.” Lockwood’s voice calmed the room.
Then Mr. Baldwin stood slowly. Wrinkles crisscrossed his cheeks. He’d sent his three boys to fight with the Continental Army in ’75. Only one body came home to be buried. The other two were never found. He pointed at Becca with fingers twisted by arthritis. “Mrs. Parcell didn’t help when the women raised money for the soldiers last month.”
A woman at the end of Becca’s pew sobbed quietly. It was Mrs. Baldwin.
“You didn’t invite me.” Becca searched the closed faces for proof that someone believed her.
“Is she on our side or theirs?” another woman called.
The congregation quieted again. But it was the charged silence between two claps of thunder, and the Assembly waited for a fresh explosion in the dim light of the tired winter afternoon.
With that, Augusta’s imperious voice sliced through the silence: “Someone help my daughter-in-law. She’s not well. I believe she’s about to faint.”
Becca might be rash, but she wasn’t stupid, and she knew a command when she heard one. She shut her eyes and fell gracelessly into the aisle. Her head and shoulder thumped against the rough pine floorboards.
Mrs. Coddington gasped. So did Becca, from the sharp pain in her cheek and shoulder.
Women in the surrounding rows scooted back in surprise, their boots shuffling with a shh-shh sound.
“Lady Augusta,” Mrs. Coddington huffed.
Independence be damned. All of Morristown seemed to enjoy using Augusta’s family title, her former title, as often as possible.
“Lady Augusta,” she repeated. “I’ve had my suspicions about that girl since the day she married your son. I don’t know why you haven’t sent her back to her people.”
“She has no ‘people,’ Mrs. Coddington. She has me,” Augusta’s voice was as frosty as the air in the church. “And if I had doubts about Rebecca, do you think I’d live with her?”
Becca imagined Augusta’s raised eyebrows, her delicate lifted chin. She couldn’t have borne it if her mother-in-law believed the minister’s lies.
Augusta’s featherlight touch stroked her forehead. “Well done,” she murmured. “Now rise slowly. And don’t lean on me. I might just topple over.”
“We are eager to hear the rest of the service on this Sabbath day, Minister Townsend. Do continue,” Thomas Lockwood called.
Becca stood, her petite mother-in-law’s arm around her waist. The parishioners at the edges of the aisles averted their eyes as the two women passed.
As they stepped into the stark, brittle daylight, one last question shred the silence they left behind: “Do you think she turned her husband over to the British?”
Someone else answered. “It must be true. Everyone says so.
***
Excerpt from The Turncoat's Widow by Mally Becker. Copyright 2021 by Mally Becker. Reproduced with permission from Mally Becker. All rights reserved.
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