The Refugees – Family Threads
Marie W. Watts
Type: Beta project
Genre: Historical fiction
Word count: 96,000
Warnings: Swearing
This family saga follows the author’s family as they flee England in 1630, seeking religious freedom. By 1660, they had amassed considerable wealth, partly derived from the Native American slave trade. Then, in 1774, the Hodges struggle through the financial hardships of the Revolutionary War. Three siblings flee to Georgia, seeking economic relief.
Part One follows the author’s Puritan ancestors, the Johnsons and the Welds, as they escape to the New World in 1630 to avoid religious tyranny and help found the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Family members work to eradicate Native Americans and dispel religious heretics such as Anne Hutchinson and the Quakers. The Welds utilize their wealth, built partly on the Native American slave trade, to help found Harvard.
Part Two joins their descendants, the Hodges, as they struggle through the Revolutionary War. By 1823, three Hodges siblings escape the poverty of Massachusetts by fleeing to Georgia along the King’s Highway. The move brings more challenges—harassment of the Cherokee Nation, a gold rush, and horse thieves.
An award-winning author, Marie W. Watts, is living her dream of being a writer. With five fiction and three non-fiction books to her credit, she is currently writing a historical fiction trilogy that traces her mother’s family from 1630 to 1936.
She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons.
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