Sandra Wagner-Wright’s audible version of Sea Tigers & Merchants: A New American Generation, Salem Stories Book 2 continues the sagas of two prominent families that dominate the shipping industry of young Salem. Narrator Christa Lewis fully embodies the unique characters of this swashbuckling historical adventure.
Wagner-Wright takes us back to 1790. In recently independent America, the next generation of the Crowninshield and Derby families try to continue building their fortunes on the treacherous high seas. Threats of pirates, storms, and ever-changing economies drives their fates, their successes, and their failures. Wagner-Wright’s skillful pen brings to life each young person, female and male, as they variously seek out or shun a chance at love on shore.
Captain George Crowninshield and Haskett Derby duke it out for power and control of the Eastern Seaboard, with their families caught up in the contest.
Wagner-Wright shows how these merchants brave great risk through maritime exploits in France, the Netherlands, the West Indies, Africa, and Asia. During their adventures on the sea, these captains fight relentlessly for the vessels—which become as famous as those captains themselves.
Wagner-Wright’s expert knowledge of this time period allows her to illustrate the nuances behind each family’s successes, humiliations, and failures.
She explores a patriarchal society’s desire to control the lives of their women and offspring in pursuit of building empires. We become familiar with the strong women and daughters who support their men and help them make decisions to promote their children and businesses.
Sea Tigers & Merchants recreates the courting process of early Americana, along with other rules and rituals of society at the time. We are taken behind the scenes to see how the women smooth the ruffled feathers of their proud and arrogant husbands, tempering feuds between fathers and sons. Wagner-Wright shows these patriarchs both at their most effective and their most flawed. This lends her male characters a sympathetic human element while highlighting the female power behind these strong men who depend on their women for guidance and counsel.
The post-revolutionary times may have put the war behind them, but they are still fraught with aggressions by the British crown and pirates on the high seas. Wagner-Wright’s historical representation of this period brings to life the real threat imposed by an angry monarch at the mariners of the newly formed nation.
The historical exploration of trade, politics, and romantic alliances in Sea Tigers & Merchants will appeal to any readers who appreciate the revolutionary period in America.
This audible version will further engage and delight listeners through a combination of Wagner-Wright’s masterful storytelling and Christa Lewis capturing the voices of these myriad family members who helped shape a nation.
