Benedict Arnold is perhaps one of the most famous stories of American treason. Lesser known is the story of his wife, Peggy Shippen, her former love for a British soldier, and how her keen, strategic mind led him to become a turncoat.
Peggy Shippen is torn between two sides. While many are aligning with the loyalists or the Patriots, her family stays resolutely neutral. It's only a well-regarded British officer who sees the bright mind behind the beautiful face. As the British retreat and Captain John André leaves, all she has left are their coded letters. Thrust back into society, she meets Benedict Arnold, a dashing, older military hero entrusted with full command of Philadelphia by General Washington himself.
But a time of war is uncertain, and as she learns that Benedict's wits can't necessarily be trusted, she turns to her own instincts, and new skills, to survive. Peggy must protect herself and her family-and finally choose a side: herself.
A fresh, provocative take on one of the nation's most notorious traitors, and the mysterious, misrepresented women who may have been behind it all. Emma Parry is a literary agent in New York. Born in England, she's now lived in America for half her life and championed hundreds of successful books. She first came across a reference to the "housewife who almost changed the course of the Revolutionary War" in Nathaniel Philbrick's book Valiant Ambition a decade ago and has researched and imagined Peggy's story in every off hour since. She spends her time between New York City and the house she built with her family in the Hudson Valley.
