Fierce Innocence
Wendy MacGown
Type: Beta project
Genre: Historical fiction
Word count: 98,600
In Fierce Innocence, Massachusetts Quaker Rhoda Mott faces migration, war, and famine as America comes of age in the early 1800s. An excellent student and homemaker in her agrarian society, Rhoda sets her sights on a local boy. Then she stumbles upon him and her older sister in a lustful exchange—a defining moment that echoes throughout her life.
Fierce Innocence, set at the turn of the nineteenth century, details a young woman’s struggles with family, sexuality, and the social mores of the era. Rhoda Mott, introduced as a pre-teen, is plucky, resourceful, and part of a large Massachusetts Quaker family. She’s also a hard-working, diligent homemaker who moons over a certain local boy. Her stumbling upon an encounter between him and her older sister becomes a defining moment of her life and character that echoes throughout her life.
Fierce Innocence offers an immersive characterization of home life in an agrarian society, where everything is done by hand. It’s also a study in perseverance against great odds in times of migration, war, and famine, as America develops as a country after its founding.
I’m a full-time writer with 44+ years in tech, more than half as a technical writer. My books span three fiction genres: historical, science fiction, and contemporary. I moderate the Witch City Writer’s Workshop Meetup (Salem, MA). A life-time New Englander, I’m a direct descendant of thirteen Mayflower passengers, and claim ancestors on both sides of the American Revolution. I’ve won awards for short stories, self-published novels, and gameized ecommerce training. Fierce Innocence won the 2025 New England Book Festival’s Unpublished Stories award.
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