Try Before You Trust:
To All Gentlewomen and Other Maids in Love
by Constance Briones
What if Taylor Swift found herself penning songs about love in Elizabethan England when women were required to be chaste, obedient, and silent?
Isabella Whitney, an ambitious and daring eighteen-year-old maidservant turned poet, sets out to do just that. Having risked reputation and virtue by allowing her passions for her employer's aristocratic nephew to get the better of her, Isabella Whitney enters the fray of the pamphlet wars, a scurrilous debate on the merits of women.
She's determined to make her mark by becoming the first woman to write a poem defending women in love, highlighting the deceptive practices of the men who woo them. Her journey to publication is fraught with challenges as she navigates through the male-dominated literary world and the harsh realities of life in sixteenth-century London for a single woman.
Loosely based on the life of Elizabethan poet Isabella Whitney, this is a compelling tale of a young woman's resilience and determination to challenge the status quo and leave her mark in a world that was not ready for her.
That night in my prayers, I asked forgiveness for my ingratitude. How peevish of me to wail to Mistress Walden about the hardships of working for Lady Bramwell. When my term was done here, I had a comfortable home to return to with a mother who readily forgave my flights of fancy whilst I did my chores. ‘Rid your mind of foolish dreaming,’ my mother would say, ‘go for a brief walk in the garden and resume your work with a clear head.’
Henceforth, whenever I spied the washerwoman leaving at the end of her workday, I uttered a blessing to keep her well and wished for her safe return the next day. And when my work day was done, I welcomed the sweet night. My mind, finally at liberty to drift away with fanciful thoughts of befriending the elusive Robert Barrington.
Constance Briones
Constance Briones has a Master's in Woman's History, which informs her writing.
She first learned about the subject of her debut historical fiction novel, the sixteenth-century English poet Isabella Whitney, while doing research for her thesis on literacy and women in Tudor England. Isabella Whitney's gusty personality to defy the conventions of her day, both in her thinking and actions, impressed Constance enough to imagine that she would make a very engaging literary heroine.
As a writer, she is interested in highlighting the little-known stories of women in history. She is a contributing writer to Historical Times, an online magazine. When not writing, she lends her time as an educational docent for her town's historical society.
She contently lives in Connecticut with her husband and Maine coon sibling cats, Thor and Percy.
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