The Wife in Watercolours

A Novel of the Texas Revolution

By: Mark R. Giesser

Narrated by: Zoe Teverson, Simon de Deney, Richard Lynson, Beth Burrows, Christopher Ragland, Enzo Benvenuti

Texas in 1835. Still an unruly province of Mexico. An unlikely place for two English expats from opposite social worlds to collide. But revolutions burn with unlikely possibilities. Charlotte Vernon, a genteel painter from the countryside, and Harry Birchfield, a cobbler from London's gritty East End, unexpectedly find themselves on different sides of the fight for Texas independence, she with the Mexican army, he with the rebels.

As the revolution gains momentum, their lives clash with consequences neither of them would have imagined, their fates crystallised by the battle for the Alamo and its aftermath. All on account of a decrepit cannon that no one really wanted.

©2020 Mark R. Giesser (P)2025 Mark R. Giesser

Critic reviews

"The brutality of war meets the theater of the absurd in this historical novel…an engrossing, character-driven tragedy…a bit of farce, a touch of love, and quixotic characters." -- Kirkus Reviews