In Whit’s End, The Novel, Stephen O’Brien takes the research of Dr. Stephen Smith and, with proper permissions, turns it into a complete farce. O’Brien writes, “I was inspired by the Allan Evans Algorithm. Evans postulated that IF he possessed a royal bloodline, THEN he must be included in Britain’s Line of Succession to the throne.”
Two very real sisters, Whit and Hazel, nonagenarians (90 plus years old), had the royal DNA in spades. Born and raised, long ago in a sleepy hamlet, Hanover, Illinois, the two ladies are given the gift of an Ancestry tree. They are delighted to discover their descent from colonial Virginia aristocracy, New England pioneers, and the kings and queens of Great Britain. Whit carried forty of Dr. Smith’s pedigree charts to England in what she called WRT16, The Whitington Roots Tour of 2016. She visited the manors and castles of her ancestors.
All she wanted was a cuppa tea at her ancestral home, Whittington Castle. Sergeant Devon Walpole got the bright idea Whit’s entourage was plotting a heist of some kind and the entire the farce unfolds. Were the Whitingtons there to claim a castle? A seat in the House of Lords? A place in the Royal Line of Succession? The sergeant and all the queen’s men met their match. Author Stephen O’Brien admits “I got carried away, you know… one thing led to another… and well… with Dr. Smith’s help, we created a fiasco based on a very real bloodline that hundreds of millions of people share: Whittingtons, Littletons, Bowmans, Custis, Berkeley, half of Virginia, for sure.”
If you want to go inside the mind of a great-grandmother who only wants what her ancestors owned read this. It’s that simple really.
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“I find it preposterous that a tenth generation, American woman (nicknamed ‘Whit’) and her sister, Hazel, believe they have the right to claim the throne of Great Britain, simply because they descend from the great monarchs of England. It takes a whole lot more than a pedigree to be a queen of our great nation. It is ridiculous to even suggest one’s birth alone could qualify him or her to serve as our monarch.”
-Lord William Dunham Rubblestock IV of Closmore Linsdale, Third Earl of Weasly
“This book is nothing if it is anything at all! I couldn’t help but turn every page, searching for illustrations. I heard from a reliable source the author believes his mother-in-law has a rightful claim to the throne of England. My first thought was, ‘Not another woman!’ If we must have another queen, let it be Freddie Mercury!”
-Catherine Delsby Chittenham of Candlewood Timbly-Breen
Book Talk interviews Dr. Smith
