Mohawks: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

On a bright September morning in 1707, long after the bloody Battle of Malplaquet, a lone farmer named Matthew Bowman wanders across Flamestead Common, his two spaniels at his heels. He discovers a grim scene: a dead wayfarer sprawled on the mossy bank, a sleeping infant curled beside him, both utterly abandoned at the crossroads of four old roads. The stark tableau—heather‑dotted hills, a distant high‑road, and the quiet cruelty of a world still untouched by steam and steel—immediately pulls the listener into a landscape where life and death hang in uneasy balance.

From this uneasy beginning, the novel follows Matthew’s reluctant guardianship of the child and his search for answers about the stranger’s fate. As the farmer grapples with questions of duty, community, and the lingering echo of a nation’s turbulent politics, personal loneliness meets the larger currents of early‑18th‑century England. The story unfolds with a measured, lyrical tone that invites listeners to contemplate how ordinary people confront extraordinary loss and the faint hope of redemption.