Embedded Files
Historical Fiction
Date Published: 05-16-2016
Publisher: She Writes Press
After the tragic death of her husband and son on a remote island in Washington’s San Juan Islands, Eliza Waite joins the throng of miners, fortune hunters, business owners, con men, and prostitutes traveling north to the Klondike in the spring of 1898. When Eliza arrives in Skagway, Alaska, she has less than fifty dollars to her name and not a friend in the world—but with some savvy, and with the help of some unsavory characters, Eliza opens a successful bakery on Skagway’s main street and befriends a madam at a neighboring bordello. Occupying this space—a place somewhere between traditional and nontraditional feminine roles—Eliza awakens emotionally and sexually. But when an unprincipled man from her past turns up in Skagway, Eliza is fearful that she will be unable to conceal her identity and move forward with her new life. Using Gold Rush history, diary entries, and authentic pioneer recipes, Eliza Waite transports readers to the sights sounds, smells, and tastes of a raucous and fleeting era of American history.
Excerpt
September 1, 1896
Cloudy, first fall chill. Deer in garden again. Need to mend fences.
“Good fences make good neighbors,” her aunt used to say.
Eliza examines her muddied property and stifles a snort. There are no neighbors, no cheery hellos or help at harvest time, no shared secrets or meals offered at the door when grief steals joy clean away. No, her neighbors are all gone from this windswept island plagued with relentless autumn rains that close in on the coming darkness.
Eliza removes her nightclothes and rushes into her undergarments, woolen skirt, muslin blouse, and thick socks. She gathers up her skirt, and pushes out through the cabin’s rickety door, inhaling wood smoke and counting her memories, both blessings and curses.
I do not know if I can endure another winter here, especially after what happened last year.
Before the epidemic there had been a store, and a post office, and a cannery, and a school. And—of course—a church. On those long ago Sundays, Eliza had squirmed each time Jacob mounted the stairs to the simple wooden pulpit at First Methodist on tiny Cypress Island, his pompousness preceding him. Eliza sat stiffly in the front pew with Jonathan close beside her. Jonathan’s delicate hands held hers and his small brown leather boots dangled over the front lip of the wooden bench. If she tries hard enough, Eliza can still hear Jonathan’s warbling voice stumbling over the words of the ancient hymns.
After Sunday services, Eliza and Ida Lawson had poured weak coffee into china cups at opposite ends of the cloth-covered table in the basement of the church. They adjusted the china cups, filling in spaces when others were served. They checked the sugar bowls. They rearranged the teaspoons, and placed them symmetrically. They exchanged glances and shared private conversations in between parishioners.
Did you hear the foreman killed a Chinaman over at Atlas Cannery?
Another parishioner would interrupt. Pleasantries. Then another interruption. More pleasantries.
Did you see Sly Chapman walking Adelaide Winters home from school on Wednesday?
There was always scuttlebutt about the townsfolk, or the trappers, or the fishermen, or the loggers. And always about the Chinamen. In the kitchen, Eliza and Ida would mimic the Chinamen, taking small steps and bowing to each other. They stifled their laughter. Only once had they had an awkward and guarded conversation about the intimacies of marriage.
IDA’S COFFEE CAKE
This is one of the best of plain cakes, and is very easily made.
Take one teacup of strong coffee infusion, one teacup molasses, one teacup sugar, one-half teacup butter, one egg, and one teaspoonful saleratus. Add pinch of salt.
Add spice and raisins to suit the taste, and enough flour to make a reasonably thick batter.
Bake rather slowly in tin pans lined with buttered paper. Tops with cinnamon sugar and serve warm.
But those days are long past. Now all Eliza has is a heap of gravestones to visit.
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Multi award-winning author Ashley E. Sweeney’s fourth novel, The Irish Girl, released December 2024. Her previous novels, Eliza Waite, Answer Creek, and Hardland, have won a total of 20 awards, including the Nancy Pearl Book Award, Independent Press Award, WILLA Literary Award, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Sweeney, a native New Yorker and graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, spends winters in Tucson and summers in the Pacific Northwest.
Contact Links
Website: https://ashleysweeneyauthor.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26239597-eliza-waite
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleysweeneyauthor/
Purchase Links
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eliza-Waite-Novel-Ashley-Sweeney/dp/163152058X/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/eliza-waite-ashley-e-sweeney/1122601915?ean=9781631520587
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