The Winter Purse

Nantucket, 1842. Patience Starbuck has a newborn daughter, a husband somewhere in the Pacific, and a half-legible letter bearing a confession he never finished. While Josiah hunts whales, a ruthless merchant circles the island's indebted families like a shark scenting blood. Patience and a band of whaling wives channel their secret earnings into a covert fund to buy back threatened properties—until she uncovers a hidden obligation that could destroy everything the moment Josiah's ship reaches the harbor. To protect her family, she'll need sharper instincts than any man at sea.