Running rum during Prohibition, she’ll risk her life—and her heart.Motherless and destitute, Frieda Hope is determined to make a better life for herself and her sister, Bea. The girls are taken in by a kindly fisherman named Silver, and Frieda begins to feel at home on the water. When Silver sells his fishing boat to WWI veteran Sam Hicks, thinking Sam would be a fine husband for Frieda, she’s … Frieda, she’s outraged. But Frieda manages to talk Sam into teaching her to repair boat engines instead, so she has a trade of her own and won’t have to marry.
Frieda quickly discovers that a mechanic’s wages won’t support Bea and Silver, and is lured into a money-making team of rumrunners supplying alcohol to New York City speakeasies. Speeding into dangerous waters to transport illegal liquor, Frieda gets swept up in the lucrative, risky work—and swept off her feet by a handsome Ivy Leaguer who’s in it just for fun.
As danger mounts and her own feelings threaten to drown her, can Frieda find her way back to solid ground—and to a love that will sustain her?
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Enjoyed the mix of historical events. Well researched and well written.
Ann Creel never disappoints the reader. With a gentle voice, Ms. Creel can weave an intriguing tale with well-crafted characters of depth. As one who appreciates the evidence of research, I greatly enjoyed The Whiskey Sea for its glimpse into the tumultuous prohibition years. I think she may be one of the most under-appreciated authors of romantic suspense.
This was a great book about not giving in to the “hand you are dealt” but rising above and searching for a way forward. Frieda rises above! I loved her spunkiness, felt sad when she didn’t let her true emotions show and her determination to make a better life for her younger sister. This is definitely a book about family even when family isn’t the one you were born into. It’s also about faith in one another and discovering that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Super well-written historical novel about bootlegging on the NJ shore. Enthralling!
Great story for the time period
The Whiskey Sea isn’t a romance, but it is a story about a young woman discovering what love really is. It’s Frieda’s story, a young woman who seems to be at war with life from even before the time she is orphaned when her mother, who had been making a living by selling herself, dies because of her lifestyle. Frieda is tough, used to guarding herself against the cruelty of her classmates & the rest of society, and fiercely determined that her angelic little sister Bea will have all the best life has to offer. She is given a chance at a better life when Silver, a kind man who never frequented her mother’s business, takes the girls in & fathers them with love & kindness.
The bulk of the story shows whether or not Frieda, who at times jumps from one bad decision to another, ever releases her bitterness & learns to value ordinary, everyday, unexciting kindness & love. For a time she is transformed by a relationship, but it is an unhealthy one & does not inspire good changes within her.
I grew frustrated waiting for Freda to come to her senses & reject the man who did not value her. But I couldn’t help but think that in “real life” many adults never break away from destructive relationships or purge themselves of the poison of bitterness. I think too many folks in the world pine their lives away longing for people & things that are not real & ignoring the very ones God has put in their pathway who might make their lives truly worth living. So Frieda discovered truths about life way before many others do.