Publisher's Synopsis
Stephen Hopkins was a hurricane and shipwreck survivor, Jamestown settler, psalmist reader and adventurer who yearned for the freedom to live life on his own terms. His pursuit of this ambition is explored in this imagined look at the four-year period in which Hopkins lived in London, aligning himself with the oppressed Puritans and their escape from persecution. Although not a follower of the Puritans' vision of Christianity, he became a leader and an envoy for their expedition across the Atlantic on the Mayflower.After living in Jamestown Settlement for six years, Hopkins returns to London to reconnect with his orphaned children, but soon longs to return to America. In the four years between his departure from America in 1616 and his boarding the Mayflower in 1620, he meets the people and has the experiences that guide him toward his position at the helm of the Mayflower expedition. An ordinary man who lived an extraordinary life, Stephen Hopkins has been analyzed throughout history for his contributions to the pilgrim settlement in what was to become Plymouth, Massachusetts. Today, with over a hundred thousand descendants, genealogists and historians look to fill the four-year gap in his life prior to setting sail back to America.
