Elizabeth Ann Holden Wanted a Change in Her Life, but Was She Willing To Take the Journey To Get It?
What was Elizabeth thinking? She wanted a “change in her life” because she was finding her life was becoming so monotonous, full of long hours at a textile mill, and living in an apartment that was always cold. All these things caused her to take a “leap of courage.” She had found an advertisement for ladies to come to America. She laughed and thought, “Oh well, it can’t hurt to answer the thing.” So, she did, but she never dreamed in a thousand years a man would respond. A man looking for a wife. Elizabeth’s life would be thrown into a fast-paced drama, if she agreed to go. What came next would tax her to her very core. The man sent her a ticket to sail on the “Merchant Knight,” a cargo ship leaving for America from the London harbor. Elizabeth stood in the middle of her small apartment, suitcase packed, ticket in hand and butterflies in her stomach. Her head was saying, “let’s go,” but her feet would not move. Oh, at first, when she got the letter with the ticket, elation was all Elizabeth felt, now, hearing the alarm going off telling everyone the ship was leaving the docks, she felt pure panic. Elizabeth would have gotten off that ship if she knew what was in front of her; long dark nights rocking with dangerous waves, a brothel, a new word “hurricane,” hatred, murder, Voodoo, love and, well, you will have to join her to find out all that she must endure. Can she survive such a dark journey that seems cursed from the beginning? What about that man she was to marry, would he be waiting at the dock in New Orleans? Will she wish she had turned around and walked back down the gangplank in London? So many questions but the author has all the answers. You will be spellbound until the end. Happy Reading!
