HONOR, the first book in the Quaker Brides series, starts in Maryland where Honor Penworthy lives until the death of her grandfather. The Society of Friends believes that slavery is wrong but in 1819 these good people meet trouble if they preach emancipation. Losing her home, her beau, her family's money and local friends, poor Honor has to leave the tobacco plantations with her maid Royale.

Honor goes to live in Pittsburgh with Cousin Miriam and her son Samuel, a glassblower who was deafened by fever, and his little orphaned nephew. Honor quickly starts to learn the hand signs the family has devised to help communication. Miriam naturally urges Honor to find a respectable husband. The family is intending to sell up and move to Ohio, following a bank collapse, so choices will be few. Honor tells Royale of an old Quaker saying - "A way will open." She hopes that it's true.

These are tough times; kidnapping, cholera and violence abound. The Quakers might be meek but their life is not one suited to faint hearts. Honor finds choices forced upon her and just has to hope that by living up to her ideals she can make a good, Christian home for herself and the faithful Royale.

I was interested to read about the Quaker traditions, which were ahead of their times in many ways. However on First Day, the former slaves are instructed to sit at the back of the meeting hall. As they do not have ordained ministers, a wedding must be witnessed by all the community. The glassblowing factory with its furnaces and molten glass seems like a vision of hell to Honor, while the newfangled paddle steamer is a dramatically exciting way to travel to Ohio, where Samuel intends to set up his own glassworks. Other people often ignore Samuel because he can't join in conversations, and he feels unreasonably jealous of men's attention to Honor because of this factor.

Author Lyn Cote has carefully presented the situation at a period when women had little freedom and the Underground Railroad operated in secrecy. She prefers to write about strong women, and her novels have won awards as well as being RITA finalists. I'm glad I met her heroine HONOR, and I'll be watching out for more historical romances from Lyn Cote.