Teaser Tuesday: Violet Fire by Brenda Joyce

"How wonderful," Martha said. "How many children will you have?"

"Just two," Grace said, with a deep sigh. 

Violet Fire by Brenda Joyce

It is 1870s. Grace is a  women’s rights activist. Her mother is unwell and she needs money for her treatment. No one is ready to hire her in New York because of her radical views. So she travels to Mississippi as she gets a job as a governess there. 

She had met Rathe Bragg two years back in a part where she had created chaos by spouting slogans atop a piano! Now She meets him again two years later, in the plantation where she has been hired as a governess.

Rathe remembers her and feels a strong attraction for her. He soon comes to know she needs the money for her mother and offers for her to become his mistress. She refuses. But she is thrown out of her job and somehow cannot hold any other job either, because of her strong views. Rathe proposes to her but she refuses to marry him. However, she agrees to be his mistress so that she can still be independent in her own right. 

She continues to teach young black children even though some people, including the sheriff, are against it. Then one day, She leaves Rathe, and the new church is burned down and there is a burnt body with her wearing her necklace. Rathe assumes that the dead body is Grace and is heart broken. He travels home to Texas to visit his parents and then he see’s Grace, who is as much of firebrand as she was before. And you can imagine the rest..!!

I love Brenda Joyce novels. However, I won't say it is one of her best works. But the pace is good and I liked the radical views of the heroine. She thinks NOT for herself but for the people, the ones who are ignored at large by the society....