It's a book about two people from two very different cultures, but have a shared experience growing up. Atinuke is a Nigerian girl who grew up in well-to-do home, but lived with an abusive father. Noah, on the other hand, is a white American boy who also grew up in a model home with very rich parents and a long line of rich ancestors. However, his parents are not on talking terms, his mother is dependent on him for her happiness and he has no relationship with his father. Once the two protagonists break away from their respective prisons, they meet, they learn from each other and they develop a bond.
Regicide is a full-length fantasy novel whose world and plot are influenced by the Western Zodiac. It is a coming of age story that reflects an individual's changing views as they come to understand society, religion, and the history of the place where they were born. The book blurb is as follows: "When the king of Celestial Kingdom is murdered and the culprit is unknown, Vernalia Novoa is called to help fill the void his death has created. Though ill-equipped to run a kingdom, she shoulders the burdens as one of the last living Pisces capable of fulfilling the immense responsibilities. With the struggle between doing her job, finding a new ruler, and uncovering the truth about what happened to her people, the passed king’s infamous words echo: people are not always what we hope for them to be."
I argue that, in the aftermath of the Union, these women writers often expressed specifically gendered concerns— such as the maintenance of social etiquette, better education for women, making sense of national prejudices, and the erasure of regional socio-economic differences. In doing so, they ranged beyond a typically masculine focus on parliamentary politics, international military endeavors, macro economy, and national churches. English women writers' attitudes towards the Union were more positive than those entertained by Scots authors, but compared with contemporary male writers, both sides were less optimistic about the potential for building a blanket national identity for the entire Kingdom.
Taken together, the chapters of the dissertation provide a more comprehensive view of how the Anglo-Scottish Union figured in the minds of Britons, male and female, a century after its establishment, when the Kingdom was going through the Napoleonic Wars and another union with Ireland. The dissertation enriches our research on women's use of literary genres and techniques when taking part in political debates. It also serves to point out the need for more extensive surveys of the nuances of individual women writers' national affiliations.