Or Give Me Death by Ann Rinaldi

This story is a fictionalised account of Patrick Henry's personal life. Patrick Henry was an activist who spent his life advocating independence from the British. His wife, Sarah, suffered a disorder, causing people to think she was "crazy." To keep her under control, Patrick locked her in a room in the cellar of his home. The book follows the life of Henry and his family as they go through their ordeal. The story is told from the point of view of Henry's daughters, first Anne and then Patsy. After Sarah is locked in the cellar, she is convinced that Patrick is dead, so she wont talk to him at all. In fact, the only one she talks to is Anne. The book is very suspenseful, beginning when Anne asks her mother who will inherit her "bad blood". Sarah says that the brother, John, will, but Anne doesn't want Patsy (who has stepped into the mother role) to be mean to him, so she says that it was herself instead. One night, four years after Sarah is confined to the cellar, Anne hears her beg her husband to "give me my liberty or let me go to my death!" Her words haunt Anne when she hears them in her father's famous speech. She wonders if keeping the plagiarism a secret is the best thing to do. As Anne wrestles with her decision to tell the truth, her mothers madness starts to infect John, just as the country enters the Revolutionary war. All in all, the story is extremely interesting and suspenseful, and it really makes you wonder whether or not Patrick Henry's famous line was plagiarised from his dying wife.