Crosscurrents . . .

The Tide Waits for No Woman offers a unique historical perspective—a far more varied and nuanced version than what we were taught in history classes. The people of Brunswick, Maine, included many abolitionists, and the people of Bath, Maine, included many shipbuilders and coastal shippers. Local generalizations based on those facts were often overstretched and misapplied as they nudged one another toward the defining cataclysm soon to engulf them all.

It is a story of self-discovery and actualization by a young antebellum woman, Abby Parker Anderson, whose sentiments tell her she is an abolitionist. Her cousins actively supported the Underground Railroad and invited her to participate. She has deflected the invitations in the past because her husband has worked hard for fifteen years to be viewed all along the East Coast as a “neutral” merchant sea captain, and he wants to keep it that way.

Her father is an openly discrete but active abolitionist who wants to protect her from the consequences of joining the abolitionist movement with so many other women’s activist causes in her head.

The story should have universal appeal for today’s avid historical fiction readers looking for a successful female protagonist who mainly succeeds by using her grit and imagination to deal with unexpected events.