In Gold Rush San Francisco, an enterprising Irishman and his
wife pose as undertakers to bury the secrets of the upper class and hide a
gun-running business until they are targeted by vigilantes and the demand for
land derails their operation.
The Secret-Keeper’s
Shipwreck:
Mayhem in Gold Rush San Francisco
by Jess Wells
Genre: Historical Survival Thriller, Western Literary
Fiction
San Francisco, 1850.
A city of sudden fortunes, desperate lives and secrets that cannot safely be
entrusted to the living.
Aidan O’Reilly arrives in the restless young city as an undertaker. Yet his
true business is something altogether different. For those wealthy enough to
require discretion, he provides places where stolen gold, forged documents,
illicit fortunes and inconvenient histories can remain hidden.
Then he meets Kate Cooper, a young woman whose extraordinary gift for numbers
makes her invaluable—and whose courage makes her something more. Together they
build a life and a business as San Francisco is transformed around them by
fire, cholera, corruption and violence.
As cemeteries are emptied to make way for profitable land, vigilantes patrol
the streets and the city’s most vulnerable are forced to fight for survival,
Aidan and Kate find themselves drawn deeper into a world where morality is
rarely simple and every secret has a price.
Praise for The
Secret-Keeper’s Shipwreck
Jess Wells’s novel The Secret Keeper’s Shipwreck is a
gripping, well researched and skillfully crafted historical fiction with gritty
worldbuilding. I particularly enjoyed its main characters, Aidan and Kate who
bring the history of San Francisco in the Gold Rush days vividly to life.
Aidan’s thoughts and emotions are skillfully interwoven as they come up with
ways to turn situations to their advantage, fighting their way through
terrifying and disastrous losses. What an amazing story. The end is out of this
world. I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy stories of the West,
California and the Gold Rush. – Reviewed by Saifunnissa Hassam for Readers’
Favorite
Author Jess Wells made sure readers experience the San
Francisco Gold Rush. The narrative was so strong with such vivid details that I
could feel the excitement and utter danger. I could smell the mud and feel the
chaos of the city from the very first page. Aidan is morally gray, resourceful,
and quick on his feet. Kate is an absolute powerhouse of a character. The
author incorporated research into the story perfectly –terrifying and
heartbreaking at the same time. The pace was perfect. The Secret-Keeper’s
Shipwreck is an outstanding historical novel, and fans of the genre will
love it! – Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers’ Favorite
The Secret-Keeper’s Shipwreck is a well written,
well-researched novel. Jess Wells has created a wonderful story around a
collection of eccentric and shady characters that actually existed in early San
Francisco and has given them a colorful, fictional interaction. The author has
a firm grasp on the recorded history of the period, and this gives the work an
air of authority and believability. This is a great read and one I highly
recommend. – Grant Leishman for Readers’ Favorite
Jess Wells is the author of eight
novels and five books of short stories, winner of the Nautilus Silver Prize for
Small Press Fiction with a Social Impact, Bronze Winner of the Foreword Indies
Awards, a finalist for Historical Fiction from the Foreword Indies Awards, a
four-time finalist for the national Lambda Literary Awards, a member of the
Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame, and a recipient of a San
Francisco Arts Commission Grant for Literature. Her books are sold through all
online distributors, and her audio books can be found on Spotify, iTunes,
Audible, and Hoopla, among other locations. Her work has been included in more
than three dozen anthologies and literary journals, reprinted in the United
Kingdom and translated into Italian and Dutch. She has taught at literary
conferences and teaching locations across the U.S. Visit her website at www.jesswells.com or her Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Wells.
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