For fans of Jenna Blum and Christina Baker Kline this debut historical novel is a gripping saga of the days leading up to Nantucket’s historic fire of 1846 and its dramatic aftermath as three very different women must pull together when their lives are irrevocably altered in the wake of this infamous disaster.
Authentic and engaging, Gerstenblatt’s debut fiction creates a vivid portrait of three women’s lives converging at a prime inflection point in the history of Nantucket, and the history of American commerce, civil rights, and social change. When a massive fire breaks out in the middle of a July night, the three women are brought together, and each is forced to reevaluate her priorities and answer the harrowing question: “What—and whom—would you save?”
Eliza Macy, wife to a whaling captain at sea for years on end and mother of three daughters, fights to conceal her financial troubles and keep her feelings for an old flame at bay, all while reckoning with the sincerity of her so-called “progressive” values.
Maria Mitchell, a character based on the real-life female astronomer born and raised on Nantucket, runs the island’s library, the Atheneum, and spends her nights stargazing and charting calculations by candlelight, aiming to discover her own comet. She also tries to define her undeniable attraction to another young woman on the island.
Meg Wright, a pregnant free Black woman, a wife and mother, who along with her husband experiences push back when they try to relocate their successful shop to Main Street, also fights to keep the island’s schools integrated so her young daughter can receive an equal education.
