Determined to Survive: The Other Princess by Denny S. Bryce

BY LEE ANN ECKHARDT SMITH

One of the “treasures” Queen Victoria acquired from her vast empire was her African goddaughter, Sarah Forbes Bonetta. The new novel The Other Princess (HarperCollins, 2023) by Denny S. Bryce describes how Sarah was kidnapped by a rival tribe after her family was massacred. An English sea captain rescued her from enslavement, changed her name from Aina to Sarah Forbes (his surname) Bonetta (the name of his ship) and presented her to the Queen as a gift.

How she came to write Sarah’s story was “as surprising as anything I’ve experienced in publishing,” Bryce says. Although she first became aware of Sarah from a 2016 PBS documentary, that program in itself did not prompt Bryce to develop any story ideas. It took an unexpected tweet three years later plus an encouraging nudge from a friend to get the book started.

“How this book happened,” says Bryce, “was that Tessa Woodward, Executive Editor at HarperCollins, posted a tweet (and I paraphrase): ‘Why hasn’t anyone written a book about Sarah Forbes Bonetta?’ Then my friend Vanessa Riley, author of many historical fiction books, gave me a nudge (a shove) and I emailed my pitch to Woodward.” Although, as she says, the project came to her “in bits and pieces over time,” the author confirms that she “was off and running once it gelled.”

Bryce approached the research and writing of this book in the same way she developed her previous historical novels. She realized that the process she uses works equally well whether she is creating fictional characters or writing about historical figures. “My process with any historical novel,” she says, “is creating a spreadsheet of historical benchmarks—the history you can’t change. For example, wars, historical figures, birth and death, industries that thrived, laws passed, amendments to the Constitution, etc., and societal policies that affected your main character. In other words, historical facts that are set in stone. Once I’ve got this info in the right place (month, date, year) on my spreadsheet, I can discover the other history. At this point, I am free to dig even deeper; often, this is when I find the unexpected, the surprising, and the fun.”

In Sarah’s case, Bryce had primary sources that not only helped to populate the spreadsheet of historical facts, but also enabled her to depict Sara’s personality. The author explains, “I had documentation of the main character’s words. Her letters provided insight into her feelings about the Queen, the families she lived with, her fears of the Dahomey [the tribe that killed her family], how she liked to dress, etc. Her letters were fantastic in that she shared the things that made her happy, confused her, and the things she despised. Some letters refer to her school days in Freetown and her feelings about the female missionaries who ran the school. Once I added this information to a historical timeline, I examined the facts of her life, looking at those moments that, as a writer, I could use to build Sarah’s character arc.”

author Denny S. Bryce

She goes on to say, “I outline and plot. So, I plan as much of my story as possible before I sit down to write. Of course, the biggest challenge is getting too caught up in the planning and leaving myself too little time to write. Yes, I’m talking about deadlines!”

Bryce’s background brings much to her process as a novelist.  “I believe my instincts are automatically those of a researcher,” she says. “I credit my journalism, marketing, and public relations background and the planning, digging, organizing, and researching inherent in these disciplines to my love of fact-finding. However, the best part of research for me is discovery.”

There was never a doubt in the author’s mind that she would write this book in first person. “I wanted the reader to be close to her thought process, joys, laughter, emotional reactions, frustrations, feelings, and the choices she made on her journey,” she says. “I love first-person for this reason. It brings the reader into the main character’s head.” The Other Princess is also written in past tense. Bryce explains, “Writing in first-person, past tense automatically implies that the point of view character is sharing her experiences with the benefit of hindsight.”

The author believes that Sarah’s life story has much to teach modern readers. “In many ways,” she says, “Sarah shows us that tragedy and hardships aren’t impossible to overcome. She is always determined to survive. I also like to think that stubbornness was never a negative for Sarah. I would love for readers to find Sarah’s life compelling, courageous, and complicated—and complications are very familiar to today’s royal watchers.”

She concludes by saying, “For many readers, Sarah Forbes Bonetta is someone they’ve never heard of. Sharing a novel about a historical figure that will be ‘new’ to many readers is exhilarating.”

About the contributor: Lee Ann Eckhardt Smith’s passion for history and storytelling has driven her writing career. She is the author of two acclaimed non-fiction history books: Strength Within: the Granger Chronicles (Baico, 2005) and Muskoka’s Main Street: 150 Years of Courage and Adventure Along the Muskoka Colonization Road (Muskoka Books, 2012). She’s written articles for many magazines and newspapers, primarily about how to write family history and memoir. She is currently working on her fourth collection of photographs and poetry, inspired by the beauty she finds in her everyday world. Find out more at her website.