Cora came from nothing but experienced everything in a time of piracy, legend, and brutal persecution. Propelled by forces beyond her control, Cora endures the life of a planter in 16th century Ireland only to discover that those she trusted most would betray her. Her story is about powerful women and a man who could change her fate forever. Ireland’s story is about the rule of Queen Elizabeth and those that opposed the monarchy. Grit and intensity, turbulent times of high adventure and drama, mire Cora’s life with an uncertain fate. Will her every hardship bring an equal or greater blessing? She did not know, but she was ready to fight for all that she had learned to love. It was the Reformation, it was Ireland.
The Author
Patrick Highers is a retired United States Marine, who currently works in public service. He has been the recipient of the Irving Rubenstein Memorial Award from the International Military Community Executives’ Association and has been cited for significant achievement in military contributions by the National Recreation and Parks Association. Patrick is an alumnus of American Military University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Business. He enjoys family, history, and meeting remarkable people in remarkable places. His novel Planters of the Crown begins a series of historical fiction that will entwine the reader and characters in an incredible journey of life at the dawn of the Golden Age.
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Read an Excerpt
An excerpt from the chapter, Brittle Ground:
Ice covered everything in a crystalline film of intricately woven fibers, forming as the morning dew refused to evaporate and steadfastly clung to solid form. It was the coldest day of the season—a frost that came with a freezing that would last for months. The penetrating chill reached down into the earth without mercy to lock every living thing that might crawl or burrow in perpetual dormancy. This was a day that the dead would be counted and the living would blunder through the momentous task of breaking earth and picking stones.
The planters were hauling the bodies out of the small community, and up onto the hilly ground outside the town of Carraigaholley. Richard rode behind, sickened with each turn as the thumping misshapen wheel banged down, jarring the corpses with unmerciful regularity. The canvas tarp had worked itself loose again and was flapping in the wind. His horse strained to break free and run past an outstretched arm that jutted out of the pile. The cold gray forearm disappearing in a mass of hair and bloody cloth that hinted of the gruesome cargo. He knew they were stacked under the tarp like cordwood, one atop the other. The cracked wood of the oxcart bowed at the sides, and he turned his eyes to avoid looking at the backs of the women marching up ahead. “Seven, not counting the girl,” Richard told Darby, the husky farmer who galloped up beside him.
Darby was his friend; he was trusted among the chiefs, and Richard was grateful for his presence today. “Seven of our men, or seven in all?” Darby asked. “Seven of the English and one little girl. The mother’s up ahead.” Darby shook his head sadly. He was a broad-shouldered man with gentle blue eyes and a graying red beard that extended all the way down to his navel. “Where is the little one? How old was she?” Darby asked as his eyes showed a remorse that indicated a fatherly concern. “Her mother took her . . . last night, alone. The woman wrapped the girl’s body, couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old.” Richard had not noticed the child among them; he remembered only the two boys, but he knew of the girl now.
“I gave the mother what she needed.” Anything he thought to spare her more grief. Darby began to say something, his questioning eyes giving tell to the thoughts that Richard answered before he could speak. “The mother said she needed a knife and cloth and would accept nothing else.” Darby looked at the back of the women’s heads. They looked beaten, inconsolable. “Strange. Does she not have a man to comfort her, to help her?” Darby asked, noticing Emma Colley walking alone way ahead of the rest and carrying a handbag that seemed lavishly out of place among the mourners. Richard knew where her husband was but didn’t answer; the sickness of his wife’s attack had finally hit him.
“What happened? What went wrong?” Darby asked. Richard was fixed in a position now because of Grace, his mind not really hearing what Darby was saying. “I’ll help them. I’ll help the women put these poor souls to rest,” Darby said, knowing his chief was preoccupied. “There are some that are able to dig, Darby. They are at the gravesite now, pulling the sod and piling the stones. Best leave them alone.” The two men watched on horseback from a distance as the planters made it to the summit and joined the men to bury their loved as well as the crew of the Humbart Keel.
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