Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators—Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown—set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War.
Dublin, 1845 and '46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause—despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave.
New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland's notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion.
These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.
The Passion of Artemisia is a captivating novel that brings to life one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era, despite facing immense struggles. Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably "modern" life, filled with both extraordinary highs and challenging lows.
From her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen to her father's betrayal, Artemisia's life was a testament to her resilience and talent. Her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist are depicted with rich details, set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Naples.
Inhabited by historical characters such as Galileo and Cosimo de' Medici II, this novel paints a vivid picture of life as a seventeenth-century painter. Susan Vreeland crafts an inspiring story about one woman's lifelong struggle to reconcile career and family, passion and genius.
Join Artemisia on her journey as she navigates the world of art and society, living as a bold and brilliant woman who paid a high price for her independence.
Clad in a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushing forces of America's destiny: Sacajawea, child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark's historic trek—beautiful spear of a dying nation.
She knew many men, walked many miles. From the whispering prairies, across the Great Divide to the crystal-capped Rockies and on to the emerald promise of the Pacific Northwest, her story overflows with emotion and action ripped from the bursting fabric of a raw new land.
Sacajawea unfolds an immense canvas of people and events, capturing the eternal longings of a woman who always yearned for one great passion—and always it lay beyond the next mountain.