Holding Back The Ocean

'Extraordinary writing.' A powerful story of consuming love, impossible choices, personal and family dynamics deeply shaped by grief, and the price to be paid for adventure when a woman refuses to be confined by motherhood.

New bride, Betsy Ranse, dares to go with her husband, a ship's Master, to the South Seas whaling grounds, an outrageous act in 1835.

Tormented by old tragedies, driven by new and terrible events, she will be impelled to go again and again, forsaking crying children, turning her back on disapproving sisters and the wagging tongues of Hobart Town for a brutal life at sea.

She will flee when she shouldn't, as a tide of sorrow rises and the seams of her life fall apart, her husband's, too. They will sink together, beyond depths they'd never expect, and only one will come out alive.

Based on a true story, Holding Back the Ocean explores the many ways in which grief can tear a woman down, burn her up, reduce her to ashes, and yet there may still be a small spark left. Maybe enough for her to find a new way, a better way, to live.

It is a stand alone novel and a companion to This Savage World and The Two Wives of Cuddy Ranse in the Forgotten Women trilogy, featuring intersecting generational stories.