Olivia, Mourning
By Yael Politis
Newly orphaned and forced to live with her brother and the overbearing woman who will soon be his wife, Olivia Killion is determined to gain her independence by inheriting 80 acres of farmland in far-off Michigan. Her father’s will bequeathed the land to whichever of his offspring would put in a crop and stake a claim to it. Olivia insists, “I’m sprung off him just as much as Avis or Tobey.” The problem: she’s seventeen, female, and it’s 1841. She has a friend who would make a perfect partner for this endeavour. Mourning Free knows how to run a farm, having worked many years for local farmers. More importantly, Olivia has complete trust in him and no fear of a romantic entanglement developing between them. Mourning will put in the crop for her, and she will help him buy his land.
The problem: Mourning is black, the orphaned son of runaway slaves, and reluctant to travel and work with a white girl. He especially fears the private agents from the South who patrol the free states, hunting fugitive slaves. Olivia believes she and Mourning can make their partnership work, and they set off together. All goes well despite the struggle to survive in an isolated log cabin. Incapable of acknowledging her feelings for Mourning, Olivia thinks her biggest problem is her unrequited romantic interest in their young, single neighbour. Then, she is betrayed and violated, and her world falls apart. Strong-willed, vulnerable, and compassionate, Olivia is a compelling protagonist on a journey to find a way to do the right thing in a world in which so much is wrong.
Genre: Fiction And Literature | History
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Yael Politis
She grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, in the house on the cover of Book 3 of the Olivia series, not far from the location of Olivia’s farm.
Biography.
While studying at the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin, she spent two summers in Israel and returned to make life here. Since then, she spent much time travelling between the Middle East and the Midwest, loving both homes. While living on Kibbutz Ein Tsurim, she learned the story of the Etzion Bloc during Israel’s War of Independence – from people who had lived through it. Many years before, she dared to try to put it down on paper. At that time, fantasies aside, she considered writing nothing more than a hobby. She did, however, post the first chapters of The Lonely Tree on a writers’ workshop run by the London Arts Council. It received a Book of the Year award there, and Holland Park Press of London asked to see the complete manuscript. Not long after, she received an email from them. “We want to publish your book.” Hey, you never know when a fantasy is going to come true.
For years, she had been researching the backdrop for Olivia’s story. She based many of the details in the Olivia Series on letters and journals passed down through her family over seven generations living in the American Midwest. She received much information and insight from her sister Martha, who lived with her husband in a modern log home, hunted her land, cut her firewood, and was as independent and stubborn as Olivia. Then, self-publishing happened. The prospect of publishing that story independently was a great motivator, and I finally completed and published the five books of the Olivia series.
Yael Politis
