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A Novel Of War And Desire In Old Manhattan
Simon & Schuster
January 2008
On Sale: January 8, 2008
Featuring: Joyful Patrick Turner; Manon; Gornt Blakeman
512 pages
ISBN: 0743269217
EAN: 9780743269216
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Historical
Set against the dramatic backdrop of America's second war
for independence, Beverly Swerling's gripping and
intricately plotted sequel to the much-loved City of Dreams
plunges deep into the crowded streets of old New York. Poised between the Manhattan woods and the sea that is her
gateway to the world, the city of 1812 is vibrant but raw, a
cauldron where the French accents of Creole pirates mingle
with the brogues of Irish seamen, and shipments of rare teas
and silks from Canton are sold at raucous Pearl Street
auctions. Allegiances are more changeable than the tides,
love and lust often indistinguishable, the bonds of country
weak compared to the temptation of fabulous riches from the
East, and only a few farseeing patriots recognize the need
not only to protect the city from the redcoats, but to
preserve the fragile Constitutional union forged in 1787. Joyful Patrick Turner, dashing war hero and brilliant
surgeon, loses his hand to a British shell, retreats to
private life, and hopes to make his fortune in the China
trade. To succeed he must run the British blockade; if he
fails, he will lose not only a livelihood, but the beautiful
Manon, daughter of a Huguenot jeweler who will not accept a
pauper as a son-in-law. When stories of a lost treasure and
a mysterious diamond draw him into a treacherous maze of
deceit and double-cross, and the British set Washington
ablaze, Joyful realizes that more than his personal future
is at stake. His adversary, Gornt Blakeman, has a lust for
power that will not be sated until he claims Joyful's
fiancée as his wife and half a nation as his personal
fiefdom. Like the Turners before him, Joyful must choose:
his dreams or his country. Swerling's vividly drawn characters illuminate every aspect
of the teeming metropolis: John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest
man in America, brings the city's first Chinese to staff his
palatial Broadway mansion; Lucretia Carter, wife of a
respectable craftsman, makes ends meet as an abortionist
serving New York's brothels; Thumbless Wu, a mysterious
Cantonese stowaway, slinks about on a secret mission; and
the bewitching Delight Higgins, proprietress of the town's
finest gambling club, lives in terror of the blackbirding
gangs who prey on runaway slaves. They are all here, the
butchers and shipwrights, the doctors and scriv-eners, the
slum dwellers of Five Points and the money men of the infant
stock exchange...conspiring by day and carousing by night,
while the women must hide their loyalties and ambitions,
their very wills, behind pretty sighs and silken skirts.
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