The Salty Rose

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. 

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Marie du Trieux, a tavern keeper with a salty tongue and a heart of gold, struggles as she navigates love and loss, Native wars, and possible banishment by authorities in the unruly trading port of New Amsterdam, an outpost of the Dutch West India Company.

 

In New England, John Tinker, merchant and assistant to a renowned alchemist and eventual leader of Connecticut Colony, must come to terms with a family tragedy of dark proportions, all the while supporting his mentor’s secret quest to find the Northwest Passage, a desired trading route purported to mystically unite the East with the West.

 

As the lives of Marie and John become intertwined through friendship and trade, a search for justice of a Dutch woman accused of witchcraft in Hartford puts them on a collision course affecting not only their own destinies but also the fate of colonial America.

My review...

A good historical fiction piece. There is a lot of history here. Well-researched too. More importantly, the author has taken this and made it into a story full of emotion, a picture of life in hard times, some unfairness, and some good times too. A readable flowing story that really kept my interest.

I also liked the POV narrated by Marie, owner of The Salty Rose. I actually thought this story would be about a salty or shall we say “tough old” lady bar owner. In some ways it was. Marie was strong and tough in her own ways to have handled the things she did.

There were a lot of characters in this story. I didn’t have trouble keeping track of “who was whom” so to speak but I did wonder if it would have been easier had I read the first book, One of Windsor. From the description it doesn’t sound like this is a continuance but I’m not sure.

Overall I felt this was a good read that was definitely reading time well spent. I’m going to research to find out if Beth Caruso’s first book is a stand-alone also. If so, I intend to read it.

read an excerpt...

The Director General slammed the gavel down with the harsh thud of an ending.

 “Marie du Trieux, you are hereby banished from New Netherland forever!” he said.

 As I held on to the railing of a departing schooner, I remembered the jarring finality of those stark words against me. Looking back one last time at my town, a little place in the wilderness that had grown up with me—I longed to stay in the home where I gave birth to all my children, the location of my loves and of my losses.

This is the best place to begin recounting the story of how I played a part in the transition from Dutch New Amsterdam to English New York, my dear granddaughter.

I suppose the English will have their own tales to tell about the events that transpired but I want you to know my personal and secret version of the history of my beloved city before I am gone.

Having left New Amsterdam for the first time on that cold winter day in 1664, I felt unsettled, not quite believing that the time for my departure had finally come. Where had the time gone? How quickly had it passed? It had been nearly forty years since I first set foot on the shores of Manhattan with my mother, father, and little brother.

The view from our vessel, The Morning Star, was unrecognizable from the one my family saw many decades earlier. We had arrived to nothing but marsh, forest, and a few Indian canoes that approached our ship in greeting and curiosity. It’s easy to recall my excitement as a young girl of flowing dark hair seeing the Natives for the first time when we reached these shores many years ago.

But at the point of my expulsion, I wasn’t an adventurous, naïve child anymore. A mature and defiant woman who had faced her share of hardship and disappointment had taken her place. The Council of New Netherland and Director General Stuyvesant had told me they were finished with my repeated offenses and had given the order for banishment. I’d been in trouble with the authorities far too often they said. They’d insisted that my tavern be closed.

“So this is how it must end,” I uttered in disbelief to my son Pierre, your uncle, as we huddled together on deck.

about Beth M Caruso...

Award-winning author, Beth M. Caruso, is passionate to discover and convey important and interesting stories of women from earlier times. She recently won the literary prize in Genre Fiction (2020) from IPNE (Independent Publishers of New England) for her most recent novel The Salty Rose: Alchemists, Witches & A Tapper In New Amsterdam (2019). The Salty Rose is Beth’s second historical novel and explores alchemy in early colonial times, an insider’s view of the takeover of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, and the Hartford Witch Panic with information she gathered from previous and ongoing research. Beth’s first historical novel is One of Windsor: The Untold Story of America’s First Witch Hanging (2015), a novel that tells the tale of Alice ‘Alse’ Young and the beginnings of the colonial witch trials. She based the story on original research she did by exploring early primary sources such as early Windsor land records, vital statistics, and other documents. She lives in Connecticut with her family. Beth kayaks and gardens to unwind.

 

Website: www.oneofwindsor.com

 Email: oneofwindsor@yahoo.com

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/oneofwindsor

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethmcaruso/

 Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Salty-Rose-Alchemists-Witches-Amsterdam/dp/1733373802

 Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-salty-rose-beth-m-caruso/1133991342

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