The book charts a forbidden love story set against the backdrop of the fight for women’s suffrage in Ireland in the early twentieth century.
Maid Of Steel
It’s 1911 and, against her mother’s wishes, quiet New Yorker Emma dreams of winning the right to vote. She is sent away by her parents in the hope distance will curb her desire to be involved with the growing suffrage movement and told to spend time learning about where her grandparents came from.
Across the Atlantic – Queenstown, southern Ireland – hotelier Thomas dreams of being loved, even noticed, by his actress wife, Alice. On their wedding day, Alice’s father had assured him that adoration comes with time. It’s been eight years. But Alice has plans of her own and they certainly don’t include the fight for equality or her dull husband.
Emma’s arrival in Ireland leads her to discover family secrets and become involved in the Irish Women’s Suffrage Society in Cork. However, Emma’s path to suffrage was never meant to lead to a forbidden love affair…
Kate Baker wrote terrible holiday diaries as a child, which her husband regularly asks her to read out loud for their entertainment. She has since improved and has written with intent since 2018. Maid of Steel is her second novel; the first is lining drawers in the vegetable rack at their farmhouse.
Kate says,
“As I stood in the Cobh Heritage Museum in 2019, horrified to discover the truths about emigration on coffin ships to far away continents in the mid 19th century, I began to wonder what it might be like for someone to return to Ireland; to retrace their grandparents’ footsteps and perhaps discover secrets. I am fascinated by the dark and forbidden, and I began to plot a love story often untold in romances. Having become more learned to psychology and people’s blueprint expectations of others, I found writing these complex characters a great exploration of how they found their true identities against a backdrop of political turmoil and prejudice.”
Publication date: 28th February 2023
ISBN 9781915352699
Price £8.99