Based on actual events...
It's 1913 and Great Lakes galley
cook Sunny Colvin has her hands full feeding a freighter crew seven days a
week, nine months a year. She also has a dream—to open a restaurant back
home—but knows she'd never convince her husband, the steward, to leave the
seafaring life he loves.
In Sunny’s Lake Huron hometown, her sister Agnes Inby mourns her husband, a
U.S. Life-Saving Serviceman who died in an accident she believes she could have
prevented. Burdened with regret and longing for more than her job at the dry
goods store, she looks for comfort in a secret infatuation.
Two hundred miles away in Cleveland, youngest sister Cordelia Blythe has pinned
her hopes for adventure on her marriage to a lake freighter captain. Finding herself
alone and restless in her new town, she joins him on the season’s last trip up
the lakes.
On November 8, 1913, a deadly storm descends on the Great Lakes, bringing
hurricane-force winds, whiteout blizzard conditions, and mountainous
thirty-five-foot waves that last for days. Amidst the chaos, the women are
offered a glimpse of the clarity they seek, if only they dare to perceive it.
Buy
Links
Universal Link
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
Kinley Bryan
Fun Facts
(Stuff you may or may not already know!)
My ancestors were
captains on the Great Lakes
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
I was inspired to
write Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury by stories of my great-grandfather
Walter Stalker, a captain on the Great Lakes in the early 1900s. He was at the
helm of the four-masted schooner Golden Age, a position
previously held by his uncle when the 1913 storm hit. My great-grandmother
Annabel served as a cook and at least one of their children was also aboard. They
sheltered for days in an island cove until the storm ended. I’m in awe of their
bravery and that of all sailors who faced the fury. While I decided to write a
story about fictional sisters instead of my great-grandparents and steel
freighters instead of schooners, it was family history that led me to the Great
Lakes Storm of 1913.
Wave breaking on
the shore of Lake Michigan by Lincoln Park on November 10, 1913.
Source:
Chicago Daily News, Inc., Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
Speaking of
hurricane-force winds…
I grew up in Ohio,
where hurricanes were something we only heard about on TV. My kids are having a
very different experience. Five years ago, we moved to the Atlantic Coast, and
since then we’ve had to evacuate three times due to a hurricane threat. One
hurricane hit our town, but we were lucky that our home sustained minimal
damage (ironically a couple of our storm shutters blew down the street). My
husband and I approach hurricane season with apprehension, but our children
look forward to the possibility of a “hurrication”! They get to
miss school, stay in a hotel, and eat in restaurants. We have fun exploring
whatever town we find ourselves in.
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
The first time I
wrote a fan letter
When I was in
third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Hertle, suggested I write a letter to the author
of The Boxcar Children, a children’s book series I loved. I don’t
remember what I wrote to Gertrude Chandler Warner, but I did so
enthusiastically and eagerly awaited a reply. Weeks after Mrs. Hertle mailed my
letter, she called me to her desk. She held up the envelope containing the
letter I’d written. Frowning, she pointed to a word stamped on it in bright
red, all caps. I remember feeling like I’d done something wrong, like the
envelope was admonishing me. When I asked what the word meant, Mrs. Hertle said
gently, “It means she died.” And that was how I learned the word “deceased”!
Source: Dorothy
Lake Gregory, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
I was a
competitive gymnast as a kid
I started
gymnastics lessons when I was three, won my first blue ribbon at five, and at nine I
competed in the state finals in Ohio, winning gold for uneven bars and silver
for all-around. After that season I progressed to the next level, which meant
the moves were now more complex and quite a lot scarier. I said to my parents
and coaches, thanks but no thanks. While I loved gymnastics, that love was no
match for my instincts for self-preservation. And so I retired at age ten.
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
I can bake a good
scone
It’s a skill I
picked up in 2020 when I couldn’t go to a coffee shop to write. Instead, I
would bake chocolate chip scones (or blueberry, or raspberry white chocolate),
play the background noises of a coffee shop (on mynoise.net), pour a cup of
coffee, and write!
Source:
Kinley Bryan
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
Kinley Bryan
Kinley
Bryan is an Ohio native who counts numerous Great
Lakes captains among her ancestors. Her great-grandfather Walter Stalker was
captain of the four-masted schooner Golden Age, the largest sailing vessel in
the world when it launched in 1883. Kinley’s love for the inland seas swelled
during the years she spent in an old cottage on Lake Erie. She now lives with
her husband and children on the Atlantic Coast, where she prefers not to lose
sight of the shore. Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury is her first
novel.
Social Media Links:
Website Twitter Instagram Amazon Author Page Goodreads
