A Respectable Actress by Dorothy Love, © 2015

  

Actress Fanny Kemble, the inspiration for A Respectable Actress.

                                     --author Dorothy Love

All the world's a stage and all the men and

women merely players. They have their exits and

their entrances and one man in his time plays

many parts . . .

   --WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Savannah, Georgia, December 20, 1870

The packed theater is erupted with gunfire as the leading man, Arthur Sterling, goes down.

  Visiting actress, Miss India Hartley, is rushed off to the Chatham County Jail. Theatrical noises during the performance of Suspicion at the Southern Palace Theater could not buffet the sound shattering the night.

   Father had often reminded her that every situation seemed less daunting in the light of a new day...
A Respectable Actress, 3

One moment, one change in the script by house director Cornelius Philbrick, rearranges lives forever.



St. Simons Island, Georgia, January 5, 1871 ~ Indigo Point

Defense attorney Philip Sinclair has been hired by a benevolent socialite to defend actress India Hartley. Mrs. Sutton Mackay has long been an admirer of the theater and wants to divert scandal for Miss Hartley.

   The house was of the West Indies style, built above a tabby basement, with wide, covered verandas and tall windows framed by shutters.
   Ibid., 33

Mr. Sinclair's sister, Amelia, and housekeeper, Mrs. Catchpole, are in residence at their plantation home as they deem to keep it from further decay and ruin since the war. As with her heart, India hopes to keep in the same repair as she faces what the future may bring to her silent, hesitant thoughts, intermingled with hope and assurance that Truth will prevail.

  Returning on the steamer back to Savannah for the trial, would her sanctuary at Indigo Point following the inquest be enough to quench her fears ~ of the unknown beyond her innocence?

~*compounded*~
"From the ruin of her old life had come this love, this priceless treasure."
Would her heart be summoned?

Join this story as secrets become evident and freedom hopeful.




A native of west Tennessee, Dorothy Love makes her home in the Texas hill country with her husband and their golden retriever. An award-winning author of numerous young adult novels, Dorothy made her adult debut with the Hickory Ridge novels. Contact author Dorothy Love: Facebook, Website, Twitter.
***Thank you to author Dorothy Love and to Thomas Nelson for this copy of A Respectable Actress for review. This review was written in my own words. No other compensation was received.***