The Whiskey Sea
After they’re orphaned in 1908, life appears stacked against Frieda and Bea, daughters of a New Jersey fishing town’s whore. Luckily for the little girls, Silver, a bachelor clam raker, takes them in. When Frieda graduates from high school, she plans to join the aging fisherman on his boat. To her horror, Silver informs Frieda that he has sold the boat to send her to secretarial school. He also advises the young woman that she consider marrying Sam Hicks, the man who bought Silver’s boat. However, Frieda has other plans.
When Prohibition became national law in 1920, it provided Highlands’ fishermen with a fast way to get rich. Ships loaded with liquor from Canada or Europe meet whiskey runners a few miles offshore so the fishing boats can slip their illegal cargoes ashore. The captains risk a hefty fine and confiscation of their boats, or death from hijackers also in search of easy money, but a successful whiskey runner can make $1,000 in a single night. Frieda signs up as a boat’s mechanic so she can support Silver and send her little sister to college.
The Whiskey Sea is an entertaining look at the free-wheeling whiskey runner’s world through the eyes of a tough, resourceful young woman. Ms. Creel presents her readers with a fast-paced, vivid adventure, and also a very personal tale. Frieda has choices to make. Is ensuring her family’s future worth risking everything? And what of “Princeton,” a handsome college boy who signs on as deckhand for a summer’s adventure, and Sam Hicks, the stolid fisherman who has adored her from afar? Try The Whiskey Sea – it won’t let you down.
