Sally Armstrong

Scotland: AD 1297 Two heroes. One nation. United in the fight for freedom. In the spring of 1297, the two great Scottish heroes meet in Ayr: William Wallace, legendary champion of the common man, and Robert Bruce, who would perfect the guerrilla warfare developed by Wallace and use it to cement his place in history as Scotland's greatest king. Each is determined to defy the ambitions of England and its malignant king, Edward Plantagenet, whose lust to conquer and consume the realm of Scotland by blood and fury is unyielding. Their anger is about to unleash a storm that will last for sixteen years. From Jack Whyte, the master of the sweeping historical epic, comes the continuing story of two heroes who changed the entire destiny of Scotland by defying the might and power of the king of England.

goodread review: Charlotte Taylor lived in the front row of history. In 1775, at the young age of twenty, she fled her English country house and boarded a ship to Jamaica with her lover, the family’s black butler. Soon after reaching shore, Charlotte’s lover died of yellow fever, leaving her alone and pregnant in Jamaica. In the sixty-six years that followed, she would find refuge with the Mi’kmaq of what is present-day New Brunswick, have three husbands, nine more children and a lifelong relationship with an aboriginal man. Using a seamless blend of fact and fiction, Charlotte Taylor's great-great-great-granddaughter, Sally Armstrong, reclaims the life of a dauntless and unusual woman and delivers living history with all the drama and sweep of a novel.'' Charlotte Taylor's story is what you might get if you crossed Susanna Moodie and Jack Aubrey --- a delicious character and a great yarn. Sally Armstrong has imagined an ancestor who possesses all the passion and daring that she herself has in abundance, and by the time we had finished our journey together through the trials and turbulence and the terrible beauty of the early days on the Miramichi, I wanted to claim Charlotte as my Ancestor, too.---Mary Lou Finlay, Broadcaster and Former host of CBC Radio's ''As It Happens.''---back cover

"Veiled Threat is Sally Armstrong's testimony to what she saw in Afghanistan. It not only describes the Taliban's brutality, but also the enduring courage of the women who resisted it for five years. Her account is both panoramic and nuanced: she describes the "dreadfully misogynist interpretation of Islam" that has taken hold in much of the region and then focuses on the individuals who have suffered under its yoke. She tells the story of Dr. Sima Samar, a deputy prime minister who operated secret schools and hospitals for girls, and many others whose small acts of resistance were statements of freedom and fortitude.". "Forced to wear body-length covering, unable to venture into public by themselves, the women of Afghanistan not only endured, they triumphed. Armstrong's narrative honors their struggles and finally gives them a voice. She places the Taliban within a historical framework of fundamentalist regimes that have used the Koran as a tool of political oppression against women. She also points a finger at the international community for accepting misogyny in the name of culture. Honest and compassionate, wide-reaching and intimate, Veiled Threat is the most detailed account we have of the Taliban's outrages against women."--BOOK JACKET.