Breaking Free

In order to get off the streets of Boston in 1844, four-year-old Lisa Bellamont’s mother, Charlotte, accepts a job at the Hillside Orphanage for Boys on the condition that her child is a boy. For the next eleven years, they live the lie until Lisa’s pretense becomes so much a part of her that she is overwhelmed when she is thrust out into the world after her mother dies. Her last encounter with the cruel headmaster fills him with rage. She escapes from him and goes into hiding with the help of her employer, who is involved in the Underground Railroad. Their escape journey leads them to Lawrence, a small abolitionist settlement in the Kansas Territory, which is being threatened by contingents of pro-slavery men from Missouri. A letter found in her mother’s crucifix carries an additional shock to her life. Lisa’s effort to find something positive in every situation is tested many times as she finds her freedom and becomes a lovely young woman with a few charming remnants of her boyhood.