The Light and Shadow Series
The Light and Shadow Series traces the Whipple family across a changing New England—where identity, faith, and belonging are shaped by the rising power of Puritan law and the quiet resilience of those living in its margins.
❧ Book One — Strawberry Moon
A story of identity, belonging, and forbidden love in 1630s Massachusetts.
Sarah Whipple grows up between two worlds the colony refuses to let her hold at once. When Puritan soldiers destroy Merrymount and seize her English father, she is forced into her mother’s Massachusett village, where she is both welcomed and quietly set apart. Across the river, John Whipple arrives from England as an indentured servant, bound to survive under harsh authority. As smallpox, storms, and war fracture the region, Sarah and John form a bond neither world will accept — a connection that forces them to confront what survival demands, and what belonging costs.
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❧ Book Two — The Lesser Light
A generation shaped by faith, law, and the quiet search for freedom.
Coming soon
Sarah and John Whipple have survived the violence and instability of early Massachusetts and built a family in a colony that promises godliness—but demands conformity. As their children grow, Massachusetts grows harsher around them: dissenters are expelled, Quakers are persecuted, Indigenous families are pushed onto shrinking lands, and slavery becomes law. In Dorchester, faith can open a door to belonging for one person while closing it to another, and the difference between freedom and bondage is often decided by those in power.
As the Whipples raise a new generation beneath the watchful eyes of church and colony, John and Sarah must decide how much obedience a peaceful life requires—and what it might cost to follow conscience instead.
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❧ Book 3 — Light Within
A story of resilience, renewal, and the light carried forward.
Coming soon
When the search for religious freedom finally forces the Whipple family to leave Dorchester, the path ahead is uncertain.
Yet even in a world determined to control the light, there are those who carry a lesser light of their own: quiet, stubborn, and impossible to extinguish.
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