Publisher: Black Rose Writing (April 25, 2024)

An island sheltered from modern progress. Strict lines between servants and masters. Will crossing them leave her fatally exposed?

Bar Harbor, Maine. 1913. Mabel Rae is smart, reckless, and naïve. So when the ambitious seventeen-year-old joins the staff at a rocky cliffside cottage, she willingly lets the boisterous estate owner’s improper advances sweep her off her feet. And the slender young woman dismisses the vulnerability of her position when she discovers she’s pregnant with his unacknowledged child.

Brought harshly down to earth after she’s caught up in the machinations of a family feud, Mabel decides it’s time to take matters into her own hands. But with no money and few rights, she fears a forced marriage to the brutish gardener is her only socially acceptable option.

Is her future forever stunted, or can she become a beacon of change?

In a classic upstairs-downstairs tale, award-winning author Tavi Taylor Black spins an intricate web of idealism’s battle against harsh reality. Set at a time when suffrage was at its height, temperance was gaining momentum, and war loomed in Europe, this spellbinding novel shines a light on inequities we still face today.

Serabelle is a darkly humorous work of historical fiction. If you like intricate relationships, lyrical prose, and stories that tackle serious issues, then you’ll love Tavi Taylor Black’s vivid portrait of the Gilded Age.

Excerpt

My historical novel, Serabelle is set in 1913 on what was the Sonogee Estate in Bar Harbor. My family's history informs this novel greatly, as my great-grandmother worked as a cook on the Kent estate. My grandmother and mother were there during the great Bar Harbor fire of 1947. When I was a child, my family would sneak onto the grounds of what was at that time a nursing home. We played on the rocks and gathered shells for hours every summer, instilling in me a fascination for the landscape.

I was handed down a piece of jewelry, a pin with sapphire and moonstone that was said to be given to my great-grandmother by Mrs. Kent herself. When my mother spoke of Sonogee, it was with pride, as if our family, too, belonged to that cottage. Throughout the novel, I explore what ownership and dignity mean to all facets of life on the estate.

Serabelle explores the struggles of class and position, of prejudice and honor—issues as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago. Is a person born to a certain class or race or gender bound to the constraints of that caste? Mabel and a handful of other servants explore the boundaries of their positions. Those who enjoy a good upstairs/downstairs series such as Downton Abbey will enjoy the intertwining plot lines of Serabelle.

Here’s a short excerpt wherein Mabel, a maid, is talking to a stable boy, Willie, over the body of Clarissa, a mare who just gave birth:

“Willie, what do you think a life is worth?”

“Whose?”

“That is exactly what I was thinking. Some lives are valuable, some are not.” Mabel thought of the pamphlet she had been handed the other day in town. She had taken it out of the basket and tucked it inside her bodice, only to unfold it later that night in bed, by candlelight.

Twelve reasons why women should vote, it said. Mabel read down the list, clinging especially to the words: Because 8,000,000 women in the United States are wage workers, and the conditions under which they work are controlled by law.

“Clarissa,” Mabel said to Willie. “No one here, except you, really cares that she is dying. She is not valuable. If she had been a stallion, if there was something wrong with Mr. Hunt’s stallion, do you think they would have left him to die?”

“Not likely,” Wille admitted.

“Just what I thought. In this world, females do not count for much. We cannot even vote.” Mabel sniffed and tried to hold back her tears. “I just cannot figure out why Beverly thought my life was worth saving. Other than my mother—who might never even see me again—who would really care if I was dead?”

“I would.”

Mabel looked at Willie’s face, sad and soft, his look distant. “You are only being kind. I do not think you would miss me.”

“I am telling you the truth.” Willie stood and walked over to Mabel. He took both her hands tentatively in his, as if asking permission. He had never touched her before. He was ripe with the scent of blood and dung but his face was suddenly flushed with life, his eyes sparkled. “I would hate it if you died. You are one of the nicest people I ever met.”

Tears rolled freely down Mabel’s cheeks and she found she could not speak. What would someone who came upon them think? A young, pregnant maid holding hands with a negro stable boy? They stood still, freezing the moment in time, looking into each other’s eyes, until Clarissa made a soft hiccup. As if he had read Mabel’s thoughts, Willie dropped her hands and lay back down next to the horses. The baby made a bleating sound, nudging its mother. Clarissa did not move.

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About the Author

Tavi Taylor Black earned an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in Cambridge where she worked with such skilled writers as A.J. Verdelle and Tony Eprile. In the years following her graduation, Tavi created a collection of short stories, Crazy Happy. Several stories from the collection were shortlisted for prizes, including the Fish One Page Prize, Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Works Competition and the Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Prose. Other stories have appeared in Alligator Juniper and Opium Magazine online. Current stories are listed on her website at www.taviblack.com