The Cemetery Keeper’s Wife poignantly blends fact and fiction as two women scarred by shame, and separated by more than a century, reach across time to rewrite history. But Rachel’s journey soon forces her to face a tragedy in her own past. Upon discovering the monument to Tillie Smith, who “Died in Defence of Her Honor,” Rachel is overcome by a powerful memory, and soon on a quest to find out what really happened to Tillie. McFadden shares her lifelong obsession with Tillie Smith through her modern day character, Rachel Miller, who has just married the 7th generation cemetery keeper. A few weeks later, though, janitor James Titus was arrested and eventually sentenced to hang. The Pinkerton Detective Agency declared the crime would not be solved. The 1886 rape and murder of kitchen maid Tillie Smith, 19, on the grounds of a New Jersey seminary where she worked captivated and outraged Victorian America. Three-time ABA Indie Next List author Maryann McFadden brings to life a young woman’s voice that was silenced 130 years ago in The Cemetery Keeper’s Wife, a historical novel she believes she was destined to write.
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