Sunday Snippet: Try Before You Trust: To All Gentlewomen and Other Maids in Love by Constance Briones #HistoricalFiction #WomenInHistory #SundaySnippet #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Try Before You Trust

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.

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After months of waiting with anticipation, my eyes fell upon the gallant Robert Barrington reading a book by the blazing light of the fire. He didn’t notice my quiet entrance into the library. I nearly jumped with fright when he abruptly slammed the book shut and let loose a long, noisy yawn as if bored. With a serendipitous toss of his head in my direction, he locked eyes with me. The muscles of my heart tightened. His stare burned hot like the roaring fire. But I quickly realized I had nothing to fear, for he flashed an inviting smile, and when he spoke, his mellifluous voice dispelled my apprehension.

“Has my aunt bid you to fetch me, Isabella?”

“Y-y – you know my name?” I pinched my thigh to have stammered.

“Are you not the new maidservant in training who hails from Cheshire?”

I nodded, like a simpleton so disconcerted that he knew about me.

He pointed to the chair opposite him, and I readily obliged to join him. His face possessed a handsome ruggedness, made gentle by a warm smile, and delicate black lashes hovered over his deep brown eyes like a silk canopy.

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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.

Connect with Constance:

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