Mary Patten, the wife of a clipper ship navigator, finds herself in the world's most dangerous ocean waters off Cape Horn and in command of the ship's mutinous crew when her husband falls ill.

A gripping novel of love and adventure on the high seas that introduces an unforgettable young heroine. Growing up on the Bay of Fundy in the 1860s, Azuba Galloway is determined to escape the confines of her town and live at sea. When she captures the heart of Captain Nathaniel Bradstock, she is sure her dreams are about to be realized, only to have pregnancy intervene. But when Azuba becomes embroiled in a scandal, Nathaniel must bring his young family abroad to save his reputation. Azuba gets her wish, but at what price? Alone in a male world, and juggling the splendor of foreign ports with the terror of the open seas, Azuba must fight to keep her family together. Blending the high-tension drama of missed chances and unexpected twists of the sort that made A Reliable Wife a bestseller with the pluck and spirit of a heroine in the vein of Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Sea Captain's Wife will captivate readers and critics alike.

In the great sweep of history, of winds, tides and seasons, there is a story of courage and survival that belongs not to a great sea captain, but to his wife...While James Cook circumnavigated the globe, travelling further than any man had before, Elizabeth Cook travelled with him in her thoughts, imagining the exotic, the sensual and the strange. There were months, sometimes years, with no word...But as James sailed into the blue, earning his place in history, Elizabeth Cook made discoveries of her own. Though she rarely left London, she was propelled on a journey into the far reaches of the human heart, a journey marked by James' departures and those of her six children, whom she lost one by one...This is a rich portrayal of the life of a woman whose passion and intellect matched that of her celebrated husband. It is a lyrical exploration of imagined interior worlds, shaped by historical fact. It is, above all, a celebration of love and endurance.

"What a terrific book! I could hardly put it down... A story of triumph over adversity."--James McPherson. Award-winning historian Hodes presents the true, extraordinary story of Eunice Connolly, a woman whose misfortune and defiance make up the grand themes of American history--opportunity and racism, war and freedom.

A hen frigate is any boat with the captain's wife on board. This is their story of life on the high seas.

"Smashing her way through enormous cross seas and howling winds the Neptune's Car began to run her easting down. She passed a battered barque bearing Hamburg markings vainly attempting to make westing against a thundering south-westerly gale." Those with an interest in American maritime history would know of the story of Mary Patten and the clipper ship Neptune's Car. However few would be aware of the cursed nature of the ship. The Patten's fateful voyage was just one in the career of a clipper whose travels spanned the globe. Built at the yard of Page & Allen in Gosport, Virginia in the spring of 1853, the Neptune's Car quickly established her reputation for speed. However murder, mutiny, mayhem, plague, disaster, war, death and financial ruin haunted any who know her. The fickle hand of fate was always at the helm and like the oceans upon which the clipper sailed, she spared none who showed weakness! Volume One of the Virginia Clippers.

New York Times Bestseller: Sweeping from the 1850s through the early 1920s, this towering family saga examines the price of ambition and power. Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh is twelve years old when he gets his first glimpse of the promised land of America through a dirty porthole in steerage on an Irish immigrant ship. His long voyage, dogged by tragedy, ends not in the great city of New York but in the bigoted, small town of Winfield, Pennsylvania, where his younger brother, Sean, and his infant sister, Regina, are sent to an orphanage. Joseph toils at whatever work will pay a living wage and plans for the day he can take his siblings away from St. Agnes’s Orphanage and make a home for them all. Joseph’s journey will catapult him to the highest echelons of power and grant him entry into the most elite political circles. Even as misfortune continues to follow the Armagh family like an ancient curse, Joseph takes his revenge against the uncaring world that once took everything from him. He orchestrates his eldest son Rory’s political ascent from the offspring of an Irish immigrant to US senator. And Joseph will settle for nothing less than the pinnacle of glory: seeing his boy crowned the first Catholic president of the United States. Spanning seventy years, Captains and the Kings, which was adapted into an eight-part television miniseries, is Taylor Caldwell’s masterpiece about nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, and the grit, ambition, fortitude, and sheer hubris it takes for an immigrant to survive and thrive in a dynamic new land.