They Burn Lesbians, Don't They?

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While researching a subject from King James I of England's reign, I found an obscure story about two witch fornicators killed for being in a same-sex relationship. The first woman was torn apart by horses, then her partner was burnt at the stake as the town's major attraction for spectators and beverage vendors. This work was inspired by a damaged journal from the Harleian collection of manuscripts, whose first entry is dated June 17, 1632. These diaries follow two young, well-educated, independent-thinking women who often walked the fine line between being a proper citizen and being executed for treason. The main character was acquitted because her father was a respected attorney, and she knew the law.

The Rose family ended with Phoebe. At some point between 1645 and 1800, a family record added ‘Rose of Tudor.’ Phoebe and her life partner Tammy saved two girls accused as witches from executions by raising them. Dina, the younger, became a strong, confident woman who married and had three boys. The family passed on the diaries to those boys, which were eventually found in an archive. On the first blank page of a medium-sized vellum book, Phoebe wrote, ‘They burned women like us.’ Below that statement was, ‘Dedicated to a young woman who confessed the night before her execution that she only loved another woman.’
Phoebe and Tammy formed the South Star Shipping Company with three ships and, with the help of her uncle, a feared and respected French pirate, created the wealth to form Rose Bay, a strategic location in Papua, New Guinea, as trade with the Americas grows, and Rosebury Sanctuary outside London, England for unique people. 

The perfect mix of historical facts and snippets makes this fact-based fiction entertaining and educational.