Author: Martha Conway
Publication: June 20, 2017
Publisher: Touchstone
Set aboard a
nineteenth century riverboat theater, this is the moving, page-turning story of
a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways
on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a
new love.
It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue—until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.
May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who ferry babies given up by their slave mothers across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her new-found friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of Dr. Early who captures runaways and sells them back to their southern masters.
As May’s secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.
It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue—until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.
May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who ferry babies given up by their slave mothers across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her new-found friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of Dr. Early who captures runaways and sells them back to their southern masters.
As May’s secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.
Sometimes now I wonder whether, like swimming,
when you first submerge yourself in a new environment you lose some of the
power of your senses – your ears clog, you shut your eyes – as you try to get
used to it.
When a man gives me money and I give him a ticket,
we’ve made ourselves a deal: I will try to make him believe something that is
not true, and he will try to believe it.
I loved to swim. I liked feeling the slight
pressure of the water like an eggshell around me, and I liked being at a
distance from everyone else.
The Ohio River was the literal, physical
separation line that divided free and slave states in the United States. The
author, Martha Conway, takes readers back to the 1830’s when slavery was
prominent in the Southern states and many slaves were trying to escape to the
free North. Through the main character May, readers are taken on a traveling
steamboat theater called The Floating
Theatre where May serves as a seamstress among other things and eventually
gets swept into an intriguing and dangerous life of transporting slaves to
freedom. May is a timid girl who finds herself, so to speak, during her time on
the traveling theater. She develops as the story progresses, which I absolutely
love. I adored seeing her go from a girl who could not or would not speak up
for herself, to a girl who was bold and brave and did daring, courageous things
that no one would even consider doing.
My issue with this novel is that the meat, or the
actual adventure of May traveling down the Ohio River transporting slaves, does
not happen until more than halfway through the book. I kept looking at the page
numbers and wondering when we were going to get to the angst and danger. I
really wanted the story to be more action-packed because the topic is so interesting
and needs to be written about, but I was often bored at certain points during
the book. The author spent a lot of time building the world and May’s time
meeting all of the people who would be important in her upcoming “adventures”,
but I don’t think all of it was absolutely necessary. I also wanted the
journeys she took transporting slaves to be more exciting, but they fell flat
for me as well. However, as I stated earlier, May’s character was phenomenal and
I loved seeing her become so invested in something so important.
***A free copy of this novel was provided to me by
the publishers at Touchstone in exchange for my honest review***
May sounds like an incredible character! I'm sorry this fell a bit flat for you as far as action and angst, but I'm glad you were still able to enjoy it. Thanks for putting this one on our radar! Lovely review! Thanks so much for stopping by to see us :)
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