The Lees of Menokin: An Early American Love Story

Francis Lightfoot Lee is known in the annals of Virginia history as one of the colony’s signers of the Declaration of Independence. Yet little is known of Lee’s personal life, a void which novelist and long-time Virginian Suzanne Hadfield Semsch set out to fill with extensive research and a healthy dose of creativity without distorting historical fact. The result is The Lees of Menokin, a biographical novel documenting Lee’s career as well as his courtship and marriage to Rebecca “Becky” Tayloe. A descendant of one of Virginia’s “first families,” Lee was a staunch patriot and reputed ladies’ man serving in the colony’s House of Burgesses when he fell in love with Becky, who was half his age. From the early days at Menokin, their plantation home, through the turbulence of the Revolution, to the lean post-war years, readers will enjoy a glimpse into this formative period of early America. The Lees of Menokin is an engaging love story set against the chaotic backdrop of revolution.