A Girl Called Samson: A Novel

One. Two. Three. Four. All in one fell swoop. We no longer believed there wouldn’t be five. Or six, or all. Loss is not spread equally. I have learned that lesson well. It is a lumpy porridge and a thin gruel, and fate does not consider the suffering of a mother and say, Perhaps I’ll spare her this time. There were many times in our season of death

The day I turned eighteen, December 17, 1777, was like the day before it and the day after. I had waited for it since I’d been bound to the Thomases almost eight years prior, thinking that I would have plotted a course, a path that led to a life of my choosing, where no one could keep me and no one could control my steps. But freedom is not left or

Great miracles were wrought on their journey, but miracles do not make life easy. Most often, miracles just make the next step possible.