Boston Harbor, 1854. (Painting by Fitzhugh Lane, original in the White House)
Find the Wind’s Eye, a novel, takes place in 1854 Boston. Based on actual events, it tells the story of Andrew Gunn, a young lieutenant in the United States Revenue Cutter Service, who opposes the President’s direct order to transport a fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, back to Virginia aboard his ship—an order that he believes is immoral and unjust. He suffers the hazards of hard choices, which threaten his own life, liberty, and happiness, including the love of the woman he hopes to marry.
Set aboard a small ship in the midst of a gathering political storm, Find the Wind’s Eye is a rousing sea story of a man of principle in an increasingly ambivalent world. He tries to do the right thing, yet struggles with the ugly truth of his own complicity in the national sin of slavery.
He must choose between his own reverence for freedom as a Bostonian and his duty, an oath sworn before God and man, to enforce the law in service to his country. His first real exposure to the scourge of slavery brings chaos to his ordered life, despite his desperate attempts to control it.
Find the Wind’s Eye is my first novel, recently published in January 2021. You can find an excerpt from the book here. Kindly purchase a copy wherever fine books are sold.