In this final instalment of Jean Rae Baxteras best-selling trilogy, eighteen-year-old Charlotte arrives in Charleston in the beleaguered Thirteen Colonies to join her new husband Nick. She little expects that she will be searching for him in an alligator-infested South Carolina swamp. During these final months of the American Revolution, she must muster all her wit and courage not just to rescue Nick but also to save the young soldier Elijah from despair and to bring freedom to the pair of teenage runaway slaves she has befriended. Charlotte and her friends meet some of lifeas most dangerous challenges as they encounter the perils of nature and of war. Freedom Bound delivers a frank and realistic picture of the slave system and a powerful account of what was at stake for both white and black Loyalists as they prepared to set forth to find a new home in the country that was soon to be Canada. Like The Way Lies North and Broken Trail, the two novels that preceded it, Freedom Bound contains a wealth of carefully researched historical details of one of the least known chapters of our history.

Jean Rae Baxter writes both for an adult general audience and for young adults. Hope's Journey is the fifth volume in the "Forging a Nation" series about the United Empire Loyalist experience. The Way Lies North (2007) won the Arts Hamilton Award for a young adult book and was nominated for the Red Maple and Stellar awards. Broken Trail (2011) won the Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Awards, as did Freedom Bound (2012). The White Oneida (2014) received stellar reviews. Jean Rae Baxter sat on Lit Live Reading Series organizing committee for ten years and served on the Arts Hamilton’ s Literary Advisory Committee for six years. Jean lives in Hamilton, Ontario.