Rachel's Story: A Southern Girl in Pre-Civil War Boston

Rachel’s world falls apart with her mother’s death. The plantation cabin, where she lived her first fifteen years with her half-breed Cherokee father and younger brother, is burned, and she is thrust into an unfamiliar world, left to adjust to the Boston family her mother fled many years before. Rachel's search for understanding of the world, both inside and outside herself, and for acceptance of the gifts her Cherokee grandmother prophesied for her, propels her into the political and intellectual vortex of the age. Her guides include Elizabeth Peabody, Thoreau, P.P. Quimby, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Coe has drawn from the Transcendentalists' own writings and modern sources to create compelling and accessible portraits of the intellects of this pivotal age in American thought. "Both entertaining and educational. I was so pleased to see someone like Elizabeth Peabody -- so brilliant and important to that time, yet not well-known outside of academic circles -- given so much focus. . . . Exciting and energizing . . .[and] so much care in the details. . . . an engaging read." – Deborah Bier, PhD, founder of the World Wide Essence Society and the Co-Editor and Publisher of Vibration Magazine "In these tales fate and choice enjoy a serendipitous synergy" – Publishers Weekly (Marvelous Secrets) "This well-crafted saga belongs in all fiction collections." – Library Journal (Eve's Mountain) "Marian Coe has a native ability for writing stories that immediately hook the reader's attention and won't let go from first to last." – The Midwest Review (Marvelous Secrets) "Coe deftly weaves subplots of her characters into a single intertwining strand ... enjoyable." – Asheville Citizen-Times (Eve's Mountain) "Marian Coe deliciously involved the reader" – Book Reader Reviews (Legacy)