Passage Home

by Alison McLeay

Book Overview

From frontier America to a tawdry barroom stage, to the bustling city of Liverpool, indomitable Rachel Dean battles the constraints that bind nineteenth-century women to find love and to build the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671692992
• ISBN13: 9780671692995
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 606 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Passage Home is The Wayward Tide

I read Passage Home, the first of this author's books and enjoyed it so much I bought 4 more Alison McLeay books. One of them was The Wayward Tide which is Passage Home under a different title. Oh well, now I can gift someone one of these. A bit more than a cheap romance, a lot of research went into this book. I look forward to reading more of Alison's McLeay who sadly passed away at age 48.

Even as someone who doesn't like first person, I enjoyed this book

I don't know when it happened but I seemed to have developed an odd prejudice towards first person writing which I am sure has so far cost me reading many good books. This is one of the times when its probably a good thing I didn't know about the narration status of this book because I would have missed out on a great story. Rachel Dean was a lonely, wild child growing up in Newfoundland in the earl 1800's. She didn't get along with her money grubbing cold mother and was completely ignored by her drunken father. It was fitting that her salvation and her lifelong curse was delivered from the sea which she would later make her living from. Adam Gaunt was the illegitimate son of an English lord who trapped furs in the wilds of Central America for a living. A loner and wandered he never the less influenced Rachel's young life forever when washed up on her shore by a terrible storm. Years after they parted Adam and Rachel meet again in Liverpool when she is seventeen and due to Rachel's persistence marry. Their lives in Independence are hard but they muddle through and Rachel learns to be a pioneer wife. But when Adam disappears her life takes a drastic turn. "Passage Home" is the story of Rachel's life, her accidental bigamy and her eventual success on the high seas. It is entertaining, atmospheric and a great picture of exactly what a woman's life was like in the time period, from poor fur trappers wife, to singer in a brothel, to wife of one of the richest men in England. It is a bit of a slow starter but once I got into it, it was hard to put down. All I can say is I'm happy I didn't miss this book. Even if it is first person. Four stars.

Great!!

I bought this book years ago at a book store that was going out of business for $2. I put it on the shelf and didn't look at it again. BIG MISTAKE! I have never read a 600 page book in such a short time in all my life! I couldn't put it down. I have always been a huge fan of historical romance. Rachel Dean's lonely spirit captivated me from the first page. I hoped just as strongly as she did for her contentment. I can't wait to enjoy more of McLeay's books.

A fun read

As a fan of historical fiction, I'm always looking for new authors. I picked up this book at a book sale for a dollar and I'm really glad I did. Rachel Dean grows up in the 1820s with an abusive, vindictive mother and a innefectual alcoholic father. At sixteen, she marries a man named Adam, much older than she, who takes her to a primitive cabin in the wilds of America. Adam does not love his new wife and begins to stay awa for longer periods of time, leaving her alone with their infant son. On one such trip, he vanishes completely. Hearing that he has died, Rachel tries to make her way in the world. Her goal is to return to England, but she find that her grueling job as a shopkeeper will never pay enough to allow her to save the passage money. She decides to sing in costume in a local saloon/brothel, but is found out when she rejects a ruffian's advances and is shot. When she eventually does return to England, she remarries but again finds herself attatched to an emotionally distant man and his material wealth cannot make up for it. Her son grows into a selfish, reckless adult much to her dismay. Suddenly, her world collapses when she discovers that Adam is alive and wants her back. He's fallen in love with her older self and tries to convince her to leave her respectable life. Her nasty mother also returns and discovering that her daughter is a bigamist who once worked in a saloon, she concocts a vicious blackmail scheme and attempts murder to attempt to keep her daughter from being happy. This is not fine literature, but it is a fun historical "beach read." It has good historical detail and the characters are all believable, except for Frank, who is a bit over-the-top as a wicked villian.