The year is 1775. The shot heard 'round the world is echoing through the colonies, radiating in Pennsylvania, playing in Felicia Hawkings' mind. As the widowed wife of Major Thomas Hawkings, the sound of musket fire can't help but ring in her ears, silencing her husband's music. Just after they announce they're expecting their first child, he is cruelly torn from her. Felicia is thrust into turmoil. Her security is gone and safety has been threatened. She knows she must remarry before her time. Two men step in, one familiar and one a stranger, willing to provide for her, but which one can offer what she needs: shelter but also the luxury of love. It's not a decision to be taken lightly, as it's not only her life she must think about. And yet, the decision of a new husband is not the only thing vexing her mind. She finds Thomas' spirit hasn't moved on, still lingering in the house. What is it he must tell her from the beyond? Was there more to his death than meets the eye? Loyalties are tested. What starts as a basic need becomes a race for survival. Allies become enemies. Familiarity becomes dangerous. The unknown becomes a haven. And as everyone knows, wars and violins don't mix.

Author Biography

K. Orme is an author and publisher who has been in the professional industry for seven years although she has been writing for well over a dozen. After receiving her BA in History and Creative Writing, she opened her publishing house, Tea Notes Press, which publishes science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction as well as the overlapping thereof. K. Orme strives to create realistic and complex characters (such as the Carton-esque Henry Moore in Pondered in Her Heart and the sickly but won't-dare-show-it Isabeau Wollman of Of Rouge and Politics), richly aesthetic, thematic plots that span steep arcs and high stakes (like the mystery behind The Whispering Highwayman's death in Under Darkening Skies and the fading heart of a dying kingdom in The Sovereign Jeremejevite), and a satisfying message in each of her novels. Her debut novel Pondered in Her Heart (Tea Notes Press, 2021) is a sweeping historical set in Colonial America in the burgeoning days of the Revolutionary War about a pregnant widow torn between her integrity, her loyalties and safety, and the ghost of her husband.