Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman is a gritty, swashbuckling, page-turner of a historical novel.
Orphaned at sixteen, Ruth is branded as a witch when her parents die in a barn fire and she is deemed responsible. The townspeople drive her out, burning her home. Her only ally is a childhood friend, Owen Townsend. Owen is a sailor, first mate on his father’s ship, and Owen comes and goes at his father’s whim. It is Ruth’s good fortune that the ship is in the harbor when she needs to flee, so she stows away.
The friendship between the two has lately matured to love, and now, on the ship, veers into passion.
Still, Owen must leave her at the next port. Father’s orders: he has no choice. This time, he tells her, he’ll be away at least a year. During his absence, Ruth is compelled to marry the cruel Captain Samuel Whitlock, one of the leading men of the town.
The novel is set in the New England colonies in the late 1600s, during King William’s war. The colonists in Ruth’s new town are staunch British loyalists. Owen’s loyalty lies with the French. When he comes to rescue her, all hell breaks loose.
Ruth is a strong woman with modern-day ideas and a take-no-nonsense attitude. She has no prejudices or superstitions, and befriends natives as well as Quakers, who are considered heretics. She’ll do whatever it takes to return to Owen. Owen is more pirate than simple sailor. Although a Frenchman, his allegiance is first and foremost to Ruth.
There are myriad twists and turns in the plot and the adventure will keep you on the edge of your seat. A few anachronisms and implausibilities were not enough to mar my enjoyment of this novel of undying love.
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