My current project, a novel called The Green Dress, is based on a real historical figure, Maria Susannah Merrick, one of my great grandmothers, who was born a servant in Windsor Castle in the 1810s. Merrick became a governess, joined the Mormon Church, left her husband and made the treacherous journey to Utah, living in a converted chicken coop her first winter.
My imagining of her possible story is woven together with that of her contemporary great-great granddaughter, Madison, an artist who inherits "The Green Dress, " a large, mysterious painting of Maria. A passionate affair with its producer, the evocative landscape of Northern England, and the manners of this 19th-century Englishwoman contrasts with Madison's life as an artist in San Francisco and Glasgow. The two women's lives find parallels in their accidental connection to the world of art forgery and infidelity, and the passionate search for self-expression, family and romantic love.