The American Queen

When you first meet Louella, you learn that she has experienced one traumatic event after the next. Could you understand her need to fill her heart with hate rather than love while she was enslaved?

In chapter 4 Louella pulls away from William when he touches the scars on her back. Her scars were external, but they did something to her internally. Have you ever had to deal with internal scars that you wouldn’t let anyone get close to? Have they been healed? If not, do you think talking to someone might help?

After emancipation, many of the formerly enslaved stayed and worked the land of the people who had enslaved them. They signed contracts that guaranteed payment, but many were not paid. This was one of the issues Louella and William dealt with after emancipation. Given what we know about the hardships for African Americans after the Civil War, do you think you would have stayed on the plantation or left the moment freedom came?

As the formerly enslaved people got ready to leave the Mississippi plantation, Robert Montgomery’s former slaves decided to leave also. Robert was surprised by this. What do you think that says about the way Robert saw slavery?

While journeying from Mississippi to North Carolina, the Happy Landers slept outside and were on constant lookout for Night Riders and so-called officials who would throw them in jail and then enlist them in involuntary labor, yet they risked it all to find a place to call home. While researching, I found myself in awe of their grit. What about you—could you have endured everything they went through in order to build something special?

After losing her baby, Louella felt like “God was always making mistakes when it came to the things that mattered to her.” Have you ever dealt with a situation where you thought God made a mistake with its resolution? If so, I pray that God has healed your heart and that you still believe in His goodness and His love for us.

The same night Louella was crowned queen, she woke to a cross burning in her yard. Sometimes it seems as if we go from the highest of highs to the lowest moments of our lives within the space of a few minutes/hours/days. I believe the low moments teach us more than the high moments. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

Louella needed William in her life. He taught her to love and to forgive. He also made her a queen. I loved everything about King William and wished his and Louella’s love could last forever. But this story is about real people and had to end as it did way back when. How did you feel when Louella discovered her love was no more?

Robert was a complicated man to write about. He was a slave owner who passed as white during slavery times. At his death, it was discovered that he had three children who had not lived in the Happy Land. I was challenged to find the other side of him. In reading The American Queen, were you able to see any good in the second king of the Happy Land? Did you come to understand him and some of his decisions?

In the book Louella felt as if she kept loving and losing. While researching for this book, I found myself thinking, “what a tragic life”! But the more of her story I wrote, the more I began to feel differently about loving and losing. So now I ask you: Is it better to have never loved at all, or is it better to open your heart to love, even knowing you will eventually lose that love?

Louella was very instrumental in the building of the Happy Land, yet there came a day when Robert took her place as second-in-command and was eventually named king, as the men were dismissive toward the queen they already had. When I read about this during my research, I became angry for her and every other woman who has had to strive to be great in this “man’s world.” A hundred and fifty years later it seems as if women still have the same struggles, although I think things have gotten better. Can you point to examples in this day and age where women rule and/or where we still lag behind?

Close to the end of the book, Louella says that God’s ways are not her ways but that she finally has peace with that. However, that peace came after years of struggling against some of the things she endured. As we get older and endure our own heartache, do you think it is best to find peace with what is? If not, how would you handle the changes you must endure in life?

The scope of this book was so vast and the people within it so amazing that I’m sure you have other questions to add to my list. Let’s open the discussion. Was there anything you found interesting about this time period or the people in this historical novel?

If you were queen for a day, what kind of queen would you be? Would you be more concerned with dazzling gowns or with the people you served? Name one thing you would do for others as queen of your own Happy Land.