In this episode 233, we visit with Vanessa Riley, author of Island Queen, a novel based on the true-life story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free woman of color who rose from slavery to become one of the most successful and powerful landowners in the colonial West Indies.

Born into slavery, Dorothy, called Doll, bought her freedom from her Irish planter father and became an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter whose wealth spanned from the islands of the West Indies to the drawing rooms of London. She defied the rules and conventions of the time, both as a former enslaved person and a woman.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Dray had this to say about the book, “Island Queen is the magnificently reconstructed life story of Dorothy “Doll” Kirwan Thomas, whose fascinating legacy of grit and success desperately deserves to be better known. With lush prose and raw emotion, Riley vividly captures the complexity of bringing to life a time of rebellion and possibility.”