The Widow’s Secret

Author(s): Katharine Swartz

Location(s): Whitehaven, The Lake District

Genre(s): Historical, Fiction

Era(s): Modern looking back to 1700s

Marine archaeologist Rachel Gardener is thrilled to be summoned to the coast of Cumbria to investigate a newly discovered shipwreck. She is also relieved to escape the tensions of her troubled marriage, and to be closer to her ailing mother. Yet the past rises up and confronts Rachel, as seeing her mother surfaces hidden childhood hurts. When the mysteriously sunken ship is discovered to be a slaving ship from the 1700s, Rachel is determined to explore the town of Whitehaven’s link to the slave trade. Soon she learns of Abigail Fenton, the young wife of a slave trader, who has a surprising secret of her own, lost to the ages. The more Rachel learns about Abigail, the more she wonders if the past can inform the present… Perhaps Rachel can learn from Abigail and break free from her troubled history, and embrace the future she longs to claim for her own?

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